Congress president Rahul Gandhi today reiterated his allegation that the Indian government paid unreasonable amount to France while signing the Rafale fighter jets.
In a tweet, Rahul lambasted Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for not disclosing the price for the fighter jets citing threat to national security and noted that the Dassault Aviation in its Annual Report of 2016 as also of 2017 said that they sold 36 Rafale aircraft for 7.5 Billion USD or Rs 1,670 crore per aircraft.
However, Rahul pointed out that Qatar paid Rs 1,319 crore per aircraft.
He also claimed that the erstwhile UPA government under Manmohan Singh in 2012 had negotiated to pay Rs 526 crore per fighter plane.
“Dassault called RM's (Raksha Mantri) lie and released prices paid per RAFALE plane in report: Qatar = 1319 Cr MODI = 1670 Cr MMS = 570 Cr. 1100 Cr per plane or 36,000 Cr i.e 10 % of our Defence budget, in the pocket,” tweeted.
The Congress leader also attacked the government over Army leadership telling a Parliamentary Standing Committee that this year's budget allocations have “dashed our hopes” for modernisation and the government’s Make in India efforts may end up a non-starter.
“Meanwhile, our Army begs our Govt. for money,” Rahul said.
The Congress party has been attacking the BJP government on the defence deal, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of causing loss to the state exchequer by buying the fighter jets at inflated rate.
