Rafale deal: Dassault CEO clears air on Reliance, says it was best to deliver what we wanted
India | October 28, 2018 8:00 ISTIn an interview, Trappier said that Dassault Aviation gad chosen Reliance as a partner.
In an interview, Trappier said that Dassault Aviation gad chosen Reliance as a partner.
In its review document, the Ministry of Defence has found that the HAL-made Su-30 MKI of the Indian Air Force is about Rs 150 crore costlier than its Russian counterparts produced by the JSC Sukhoi Company.
HAL's statement comes against the backdrop of Congress President Rahul Gandhi's interaction with its present and past employees on the Rafale deal.
Gandhi who will land in the city Saturday afternoon, is likely to spend an hour and a half at Minsk Square before returning to Delhi the same evening.
"We're in talks with about 100 Indian firms, including around 30 with which we've already confirmed partnerships", Trappier said.
Repeatedly calling Gandhi a "clown prince", the BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra at a press conference also alleged the Congress leader comes from "a family of middlemen" and his his father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was "officially a middleman" in a defence deal.
In its defence, Dassault Aviation clarified that it freely chose to make a partnership with India’s Reliance Group.
The minister added that if the government revealed the additional things to the media, then our enemies will no longer require to deploy a secret service agency to find out details of the deal.
"They claimed that the fighter jet was cheaper...In that case they should tell how they (jets) are cheaper...They are not revealing...besides if the cost of the plane is cheaper then why not buy more jets? why is the government buying only 36 jets?," the former Union minister said.
Blaming the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for not finalising the deal with Dassault during its tenure, the Defence Minister said the Congress campaign on Rafale was irresponsible and baseless.
Addressing the Indian community at the Indian consulate in Dubai on Saturday evening, General Singh said no noise should be made if the French aerospace major Dassault Aviation did not find the state-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) "useful enough".
The meeting comes days after a Congress delegation met the CAG and urged the apex auditor to prepare a report on the alleged irregularities in the deal and present it in Parliament.
Union minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar termed Rahul Gandhi as a "directionless leader" and said the Congress president has no facts and no evidence against government over the Rafale deal.
Hollande, who left office in May last year, said on Friday that French jet manufacturer Dassault Aviation had been given no choice about its local partner in a 2016 deal with the Indian administration.
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