Congress leader and Rohtak member of Parliament (MP) Deepender Singh Hooda on Friday said if the Congress will come to power by winning 2019 Lok Sabha polls, they will scrap the Rafale fighter jet deal.
“If the Bharatiya Janata Party government fails to form a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe the files of Rafale deal, the Congress, if it comes to power, will form the JPC. We will immediately scrap the deal of procuring 36 Rafale jets, being purchased on three-fold prices from a France-based company,” Hooda said.
The statement came two weeks after the Supreme Court’s verdict, rejecting petitions seeking a probe into the fighter jet deal worth about $8.7 billion. Since then, the Congress has been demanding formation of the JPC.
Hooda, along with other Congress leaders from Jalandhar, was here to address a press conference.
He said when the deal was finalised by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), one aircraft costed ₹526 crore, now same is being purchased at ₹1,670 crore. “In the UPA’s deal, there were 126 aircraft, of which 107 were to be manufactured in India at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru. The Narendra Modi government, that promoted Make in India, has ordered just 36 aircraft against the requirement of 126 and that too all manufactured in France,” he said.
Hooda said as the Supreme Court has refused to intervene in the pricing of the aircraft, the Lok Sabha speaker should order the formation of a JPC, which will ascertain why the price of aircraft have such huge difference, why their quantity has been reduced to a mere 36 and why the project was given to a private company and not to HAL.
{{/usCountry}}Hooda said as the Supreme Court has refused to intervene in the pricing of the aircraft, the Lok Sabha speaker should order the formation of a JPC, which will ascertain why the price of aircraft have such huge difference, why their quantity has been reduced to a mere 36 and why the project was given to a private company and not to HAL.
{{/usCountry}}Hooda said the BJP did not submit the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on the Rafale deal in the Supreme Court and later misled the apex court by submitting an application stating that they had used incorrect tenses (past tense in place of future tense) while referring to the submission of the report. “How can there be a typo? There is a lot of difference in writing future tense and past tense,” he said.