Sunday, 14 November 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
Buoyed by the recent revelations on the Rafale fighter plane deal, the Congress has launched a major offensive on the Narendra Modi government. Addressing the media persons at the headquarters of the Uttarakhand Congress here on Saturday, the spokesperson of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Ragini Nayak alleged that the dubious nexus between Modi government, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) to bury the Rafale corruption has got exposed.
“The BJP Govt sacrificed national security, jeopardised the interests of the Indian Air Force and caused loss worth thousands of crores to our exchequer. Each revelation in the murky Rafale affair for the last five years, every single allegation and each piece of the puzzle leads right up to the highest echelons of power in the Modi government,’’ she said.
Terming the deal as the biggest scam in the history of the country Nayak shared what she claimed is the chronology of the scam. She said that on October 4, 2018, two former Union Ministers of BJP and a senior lawyer submitted a complaint to the CBI director citing massive corruption in the Rafale deal. On October 11, 2018 the Government of Mauritius supplied the documents to the CBI through its Attorney General regarding the deal. Nayak said that on October 23, 2018 a high drama was enacted in which the office of CBI was raided by Delhi police and the then CBI director Alok Verma who had the documents of the scam was removed and M Nageshwar Rao was made new director.
The AICC spokesperson said that the Modi government and the CBI have not acted upon the evidence of commission and corruption for the last 36 months. Demanding an independent investigation in the deal Nayak said that the then UPA government had floated an international tender and had signed a deal to purchase 126 planes at price of Rs 526 crore each and the deal also involved technology transfer. She said that the Modi government bought the same fighter off the shelf sans technology transfer for Rs 1,670 crore per plane and the difference in cost of 36 jets is Rs 41,205 crore.
Nayak added that a French news portal/agency in fresh set of stunning revelations have exposed how middleman Sushen Gupta got hold of confidential documents belonging to the Indian Negotiating Team (INT) in 2015 from India’s Ministry of Defence detailing the stance of the Indian negotiators which gave clear advantage to Dassault Aviation (Rafale) of France in the deal.
She asked – why the anti-corruption clauses which are a prerequisite for any tender according to Defence Procurement Procedure were removed and why role of
Sushen Gupta is not being probed.
The Media In-charge of Uttarakhand Congress, Rajeev Mehrishi and AICC media in-charge and convenor Szarita Laitphlang were also present on the occasion.
