Continuing his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government over Rafale fighter jet deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday again raked up the issue of alleged loss to the exchequer due to ‘inflated’ price finalised for the French jets.
Rahul Gandhi said that the UPA had brought down the price to Rs 526 crore per plane, while PM Modi is paying Rs 1,670 crore instead.
He said that this will cause a loss of over 40,000 crore to the exchequer.
The UPA negotiates the RAFALE down to 526 Cr. per plane. But Modi ji pays 1,670 Cr. instead. Loss to exchequer, over 40,000 Cr.
RM’s response?
We paid “our” price.
Who cares about “their” price?Answer: The PEOPLE care #RafaleScam
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 19, 2018
On 16 March, Rahul Gandhi had taken a jibe at the Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allegedly ‘lying’ on the price paid per Rafale aircraft, citing a Dassault report.
“Dassault called RM’s (Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman) lie and released prices paid per RAFALE plane in report,” he had said in a series of tweets.
“Qatar = 1319 crore, MODI (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) = 1670 crore, Manmohan Singh (MMS) = 570 crore,” he wrote, citing the Dassault Aviation Annual Report 2016.
“1,100 crore per plane or 36,000 crore i.e 10 per cent of our defence budget, in the pocket,” said the Congress president.
“Meanwhile, our Army begs our government for money,” Rahul Gandhi had said, attaching a screenshot of a couple of pages from the report.
Rahul Gandhi has attacked the PM Modi-led BJP government over the Rafale deal on multiple occasions. The Congress had termed it as the “mother of all scams”.
Also read | No JVA between HAL, Dassault for Rafale: Govt
Rahul Gandhi’s tweet comes after the Narendra Modi government on 14 March ruled out any plan to issue a White Paper on the Rafale fighter jet deal.
The Opposition Congress had alleged that the deal for 36 Rafale fighter planes with the French government was finalised at a higher price than the previous deal for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).