The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday accused the Congress party of distorting facts on Rafale deal to mislead general public for political gains. The BJP claimed that Congress leaders were ignoring national interests by do ing so.
State BJP in charge Praveen Sharma alleged that former Congress-led UPA government would have bought Rafale fighter jets at a higher price while the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had saved taxpayers’ money with the new deal.
“If the previous Congress regime had purchased the fighter jets, it would have caused a loss of Rs 57.61 billion to government exchequer,” Sharma claimed.
The BJP leader said former UPA regime had signed the agreement with Dassault Aviation company directly while the Modi government signed a better deal with French government instead of procuring and making any accord directly with the company.
“By doing so, the price of Rafale fighter jet came down to Rs 59,000 crore from earlier agreed price of Rs1.20 lakh crore,” he said, adding the Congress seemed to be perturbed that no commissions were paid to middlemen in the deal.
He said in the previous agreement, the company was to handover fighter jets in readymade condition while in the new agreement, these jet would be made under Make In India project.
“This would not only bring revolution in aviation industry in the country but many unemployed youth would get employment in the project,” he said.
Besides this, changes would be made in according to the needs of Indian authorities and after its inclusion, Indian Air Force would become one of the most powerful Air Force in entire Asia.
Congress is making undue hue and cry over the goveIndian Air Forcernment’s decision to not to make documents related to the deal public he said while citing former Defence minister A K Antony’s such decision in 2007.
He urged Congress leaders to not to mislead general public on such crucial issues and challenged the Congress leaders on open debate on Rafale deal.