Was Rahul’s Rafale math wrong? Congress president ignored fact that France ‘gifting’ 32 Jaguars to India

Source:-Was Rahul’s Rafale math wrong? Congress president ignored fact that France ‘gifting’ 32 Jaguars to India

Rahul Gandhi claimed during Friday’s no-confidence motion debate that the Rafale jet deal has come as a huge loss to the Indian exchequer. But the Congress president may not have taken into consideration that 32 second-hand Jaguars are also being gifted to India by France.

On Friday, Gandhi raised several questions related to the Rafale deal and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to answer why India was paying a “much higher price” for the aircraft than had been bargained with France during the UPA regime.

But the 32 Jaguars that are coming India’s way will provide much-needed spare parts to the Indian airforce. That’s not all. France is also going to provide India with two Mirage-2000 fighters, the planes that more than proved their capability during the Kargil war. It is unlikely that the Congress president during his impassioned speech in Parliament had considered all these aspects of the deal that give a clear boost to India’s defence preparedness.

The Rafale deal took an interesting turn in 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India will buy 36 Rafale fighter jets, which are made by France, off the shelf from a French aircraft builder. Rafale had been chosen in 2012 over other worthy rivals from Russia and the US. Initially, the plan was for India to buy 18 aircraft from the French firm Dassault Aviation in an off-the-shelf deal, and 108 other planes were to be assembled by the public sector body Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in India.

But later the Indian government said that the twin-engined aircraft were expensive. Finally, after a lot of back and forth between India and France, the Modi government agreed to purchase 36 ready-to-fly Rafale jets.

Then in September 2016 India and France signed an agreement, according to which India is to pay Rs 58,000 crore for 36 off-the-shelf twin-engine Rafale jets  Approximately 15 per cent of this is to be paid in advance. India will also receive spare parts and the Meteor missile among other weapons as part of the deal along with the Jaguars and Mirages.

 

 

 

Source:- Times Now Digital

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