All India Congress Committee spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Saturday took jibes at the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government over the Rafale fighter jet deal and also accused the Naveen Patnaik Government of supporting the Modi regime.
“The Rafale deal is a saga of multi-crore conflict of interest and quid pro quo. If the Government has nothing to hide in the contract, then it should agree to a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe,” Singhvi told a Press conference here.
He alleged that two days before the then French President signed the deal with PM Modi for delivery of 36 Rafale aircrafts in 2016, a company owned by a businessman in India, received offset contracts of 1 lakh crore in the deal.
Singhvi alleged that he had broken the established legal norms of purchasing Defence equipment by the country. Due to the deal, the country suffered a loss of Rs. 42, 000 crore for which Modi is responsible, he said. Had the 108 planes been managured in India, 1.2 lakh people would have got jobs, including 40, 000 from Odisha, he added.
“This Government talks of having an imaginary chest of 56 inches but their actions speak differently. They have not been able to spend Rs 28,446 crore of Defence budget by as much as 13 per cent,” he said.
He alleged that the Government misled the Supreme Court by presenting “one-sided, half-baked” information on “an unsigned affidavit” which was not available for scrutiny.
Stating that the Supreme Court, in its verdict, accepted that it is not technically suited to examine such issues, Singhvi said, “A Joint Parliamentary Committee is the only forum that should probe the entire corruption in the Rafale deal, find out and decide who are the persons accused and then the process of law must be set in motion,” said Singhvi.
“If Modi and his Government have committed no corruption, I challenge him today on behalf of the Indian National Congress to submit to a JPC probe which will examine the noting on the file, examine and question the Prime Minister and all the Defence Ministry Officials” he said.
The Congress leader alleged that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is providing support to Modi Government despite the fact that the Prime Minister didn’t give
time to meet the delegates of the Odisha Legislative Assembly to listen their demand to hike minimum support price of the paddy.
“Despite such a humiliation, all BJD MPs walked out of the Parliament during no confidence motion against the NDA Government and, this way, they supported the BJP,” alleged Singhvi.