Politics in India is a game of perception. However, to create a perception you need something solid as foundation else, the perception propagated is sure to fall flat. You just can’t create a perception on the base of lies. That’s what is happening to Congress president Rahul Gandhi. In order to make a Bofors out of Rafale deal, first some fabricated & false data provided to the public. However many defence experts, responsible media & even government not only clarified the things but also explained why NDA’s Rafale deal is cheaper in pricing & richer in features. A close comparison as claimed by the government says that NDA’s price of bare aircraft is 9% lower than UPA’s price & that of weaponized aircraft price is 20% lower than UPA’s price.
Even Supreme Court went through in-detail & gave a verdict that it hasn’t seen any procedural lacuna, nor any issue with pricing & finally no favouritism in offset partner allocation. But then, Rahul Gandhi thought Indian public are fools; so he can loudly speak the lies once again to upkeep the false perception he created. In the process, he did an audio-tape-stunt inside the Parliament & a mathematical stunt outside the Parliament. But then he did fall into the trap of his own?
Let’s first see the audio tape stunt. When he asked repeatedly to run the audio tape of Goa minister, Arun Jaitley said that he has to authenticate the tape. In such a scenario if the tape is false then Rahul Gandhi will lose his membership from the Parliament. Rahul didn’t authenticate. That’s enough for the public to understand, that his stunt is based on a doctored tape, which he knew well.
Second, he said outside the Parliament that Jaitley indirectly admitted the cost of the deal as Rs 59000 crore, thus if you divide by 36 then each Rafale aircraft costs 1611 crore. But when did government deny that the deal is not 59000 crores? What Rahul Gandhi didn’t understand that the total deal is including the weapons? Do HAL makes weapons?
Anyway, I place the entire Rafale fact as below for an understanding of the deal vis-à-vis Congress’ lie.
On 31 January 2012 Dassault Rafale won MMRCA competition to supply 126 aircraft to the Indian Airforce with an option of additional 63 aircraft. Out of the 126 aircraft, 108 were to be manufactured at HAL and another 18 were to be procured from France in fly-away condition.
The Indian Air Force was to face acute shortage of aircraft by 2020, so those immediately 18 flyaway aircraft along with 108 'Made in India' aircraft would have solved the problem for the Indian Airforce. The cost of the basic aircraft to be made at HAL facility was negotiated at Rs 526 crore per aircraft whereas 18 flyaway aircraft were negotiated as 1705 crore each. These costs may be noted for comparison in the latter part of the article.
The deal got stuck because Dassault didn't agree to provide warranty on the aircraft that were to be produced by HAL. The dispute continued and at one point of time, the negotiations failed during the UPA regime. When the NDA came to power, they tried to find a solution but the disagreement on the warranty of Hal produced aircraft continued. Finally, the NDA government cancelled the entire deal. Manohar Parrikar, the then defence minister proposed to acquire Sukhoi Su-30 MKI as an alternative to Rafale aircraft to which Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha disagreed.
Sometime back, the 'critical operational necessity' forced the NDA government to take urgent steps. The Narendra Modi government decided to procure 36 fully built Rafale (against the urgent need of 72) with the flyaway condition at the rate of Rs 1646 crore as a government to government deal. In the NDA deal, there are two additional missiles METEOR and SCALP. For the 'Make in India' project talks are going on with 'Boeing' and 'Lockheed Martin'. But that will take years to materialise.
Now let's compare apples with apples and not with oranges. You can't compare the price of the 'would be produced by HAL basic aircraft' with the price of fully built, weaponized and flyaway aircraft. The comparison should be made between the negotiated by UPA of Rs 1705 crore per unit with NDA's price of Rs 1646 crore per unit (both to be manufactured at France, fully weaponised and in flyaway condition). Aren't the NDA negotiated prices cheaper and reasonable since the deal includes two additional missiles. I think this is sufficient proof to expose UPA's lies.
Now coming back offset clause. As per the 2005 offset clause all foreign vendors need to invest fifty per cent of the deal in the Indian market. They can buy material; spares etc or invest in R&D. In the present Rafale deal, the Indian offset partners have nothing to do with the 36 Rafale aircraft which are to be fully built in France and shall be delivered to India by 2020, whereas Dassault's offset partner clause will commence from 2020.
Who are Dassault's offset partners? There are about 100 offset partners. Already deals have been finalised with seventy odd institutions including DRDO, L&T, Mahindra etc. Interestingly, HAL too is an offset partner in this deal where it is to joint venture with Safran for manufacturing of helicopters.
Now, what's in it for Anil Ambani? It's just 3 per cent of the Rs 30000 crore deal, which means Rs 900 crore. Out of the 900 crores, it will supply Rs 850 crore worth of spares for Falcon executive jets and the remaining Rs 50 crore will be for avionics and radars. Shouldn't Rahul Gandhi apologize to the nation for the lies he has been spreading relentlessly?
Note: All the above data are collected from public domain & also mentioned in couple of my articles in other forums.
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