The usually contentious Congress was caught on the back foot in Parliament on Friday, as Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tore down the accusations hurled in connection with the Rafale jet deal.
She blamed the Congress-led UPA of 'ignoring' the country's defence needs and doing nothing at a time when neighbouring China and Pakistan were strengthening their respective air forces. She said the previous government scrapped the deal because they could not get kick-backs.
"I would want to give you the picture of how we stand precariously sometimes in decision-making and it is a requirement for the leadership to take that call," she said during a two-and-a-half hour reply, giving a point-by-point rebuttal to allegations of corruption in the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets. Armed with numbers, she rattled off how China had added 400 aircraft between 2004 and 2015. Pakistan too increased its total number of aircraft by more than double, she said.
"Now, if this is what China and Pakistan were doing, what were we doing in India? In 2002, we had 42 squadrons. In 2007, this came down to 36 squadrons. Further, by the time it was 2015, it was reduced to 33 squadrons," the Defence Minister said.
She emphasized that the deal will bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi back into power in 2019. "Rafale will bring Modi back to have a new India, a transforming India, to remove the corruption which is stinking all around the Congress party," she said on Friday.
This forced Congress president Rahul Gandhi to clarify in his response that he had not accused the Defence Minister personally.
"It is not you or Mr Parrikar that I am accusing, it is the Prime Minister, who is not here to reply," he said.
"You spoke for more than two hours but did not mention (industrialist) Anil Ambani's name. You said that the neighbourhood is dangerous, then why were 126 aircraft reduced to 36, and who increased the price of the aircraft from Rs 526 crore to Rs 1611 crore?"
"Nobody has a right to call me or the Prime Minister a thief and a liar," said a visibly angry Nirmala, as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tried to calm her down. "We all come from normal background...I come from a middle class. The Prime Minister comes from a humble background. His name is untarnished, he is not corrupt. I have my honour intact. You can not insult us the way you want".
She also clarified that the government was buying two squadrons of the Rafale aircraft, or 36 aircraft, in a flyaway condition, instead of just one squadron, as planned under the Congress-led UPA government on the insistence of the Indian Air Force. She also said that since this was an "emergency purchase", it was two squadrons.
She also touched upon the capabilities of state-run plane-maker Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), and said it was not chosen as during negotiations, they said that they would require 2.7 times higher man-hours to produce the planes.
"If it were to be produced in France," she said, "it would be less expensive. She added that the government has given HAL contracts worth Rs 1 lakh crore and increased its capabilities of producing eight Tejas crafts to 16 annually. "Those who cry "crocodile tears" hid this (fact)," she said.
Govt did not choose offset partner
Defence minister clarified that the offset partner was not of the government’s choosing. She quoted from the guidelines of the Offset Policy, according to which the offset obligation selected by the Defence Acquisition Council ranges from 30% to 50%. As per the Inter-Governmental Agreement, the offset partner is not chosen by the government but by the company. “So far as discharge of offset is concerned, there is no mention of any Indian company in the IGA,” she said.
— With agency inputs
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