India Today – October 08, 2018

RAFALE DEAL

SEPT. 23, 2016

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar inks

intergovernmental agreement with French

defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian

for 36 Rafale jets in New Delhi

AUG. 24, 2016

Cabinet Committee

on Security

approves

procurement of 36

Rafale aircraft via

the IGA

OCT. 3, 2016

Anil Ambani’s RDL

and Dassault Aviation

announce DRAL

JV. Dassault is to

make compensation

investments worth 50%

of purchase value

NOV. 18, 2016

MoS Defence Subhash Bhamre tells the Lok

Sabha that India was paying Rs 670 crore per

Rafale minus ‘associated equipment, weapons,

India-specific enhancements, maintenance

support and services’

HOW DID RELIANCE, A COMPANY

WITH NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

IN DEFENCE, ENTER THE DEAL?

The opposition’s charge of crony capi-

talism and nepotism against the gov-

ernment have to do with the entry of

industrialist Anil Ambani. The Con-

gress argues that the Reliance Anil

Dhiru bhai Ambani Group (ADAG)

chairman was a relatively new entrant

into the defence business with ‘no pre-

vious experience of building aircraft’

and that he was given a contract by-

passing the venerable public sector

enterprise Hindustan Aeronautics

Limited (HAL).

FortheCongress,AnilAmbani’s

imageresonatesrightlywithRahul

Gandhi’s 2015 ‘suit boot sarkar’jibe—

that the Modi government favoured

rich businessmen. In this case, for off-

sets associated with the deal. A Sep-

tember 24 memorandum submitted

by the Congress to the Central Vigi-

lance Commissioner (CVC) K.V. Chow-

dary enumerates the party’s charges.

‘The deliberate enrichment of a private

entity, Reliance Defence, at the cost of

HAL by award of Rs 30,000 crore off-

set contract’ as also Rs 1,00,000 crore

‘life cycle contract’ without any tender

and without following any ‘mandatory

requirement of the Defence Procure-

ment Procedure’.

That his company was registered

only 12 days before the prime minis-

terannouncedthe36aircraftdealin

Parisaddsfueltothefirestokedby

THEPRIME MINISTER HIMSELF

HAS GIVEN A CONTRACT OF

RS 30,000 CRORE TO ANIL

AMBANI. ANIL AMBANI HAD A

DEBT OF RS 45,000 CRORE AND

WASBAILEDOUTBYPMMODI”

RAHUL GANDHI

Congress president IHAVENOTPUTANIL

AMBANI’S NAME IN THE IGA.

I CANNOT TELL A COMMER-

CIAL ENTERPRISE WHO TO

GO WITH.THAT’S A COM-

MERCIAL DECISION”

NIRMALA SITHARAMAN

Minister for Defence

Hollande’s September 21 statement.

“We did not have any say in this matter,”

he told Mediapart about the choice of

the Reliance group as offset partner.

“It is the Indian government which

proposed this group and Dassault who

negotiated with Ambani. We did not

have a choice, we took the interlocutor

who was given to us.”

The French president seemed to

backtrack in a subsequent interview

to news agency AFP later that day, but

QAMAR SIBTAIN/MAIL TODAY

CHANDRADEEP KUMAR