Sitharaman’s Attack on N Ram’s Rafale Article Actually Nails Modi Govt on the Huge Scam
No one in government has been able to explain why Modi bought only 36 aircraft instead of 126 that IAF wanted and asked for, hurting India’s national security.
Speaking at an event organized by an RSS-backed front at a very short notice on Saturday evening, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman purportedly provided a defence of Modi government on N Ram’s comprehensive article in The Hindu on Friday on the 41% higher price paid for Rafale fighter jets by the BJP government.
Sitharaman’s attack on N Ram was on two prongs: one, the veteran journalist was doing it at the behest of another defence company, namely EADS, the manufacturer of Eurofighter aircraft; and two, he was acting against India’s national interest as it will lead to the cancellation of the Rafale deal and hurt India’s national security.
She is wrong on both counts. Anyone who is conversant with the distinguished career of N Ram – from the days of Bofors scandal, which Sitharaman used so often in her reply in Parliament – knows that it is preposterous to allege that he is acting at the behest of EADS. As he explained in great detail in The Hindu, he is not asking for the Rafale deal to be cancelled in favour of Eurofighter; he is instead highlighting that Modi government did not use the leverage provided by the EADS offer of 20% discount when it was negotiating a fresh deal for 36 Rafale with France.
The second thrust of attack by Sitharaman is, for want of a better word, ridiculous. At no point has anyone in the opposition or the media asked for cancellation of Rafale deal. On the contrary, they have instead asked repeatedly the basis on which Modi announced the deal for 36 fighter jets when Indian Air Force (IAF) needed a minimum of 126 aircraft.
Also Read: ‘Cover Up’: N Ram on Modi Govt’s Defence of Rafale Deal (Watch Video)
That this sudden announcement by Modi to buy lesser aircraft was done more than a month before the defence ministry even approved the Acceptance of Necessity for 36 Rafale – post facto and as a fait accompli – is ample proof that the damage to national security has been done solely by Modi. Not once has anyone, from the blogging minister to troll minister of this nincompoop shell of a government – of their ventriloquists in the media – have been able to explain who and why that decision was taken against the demands of the IAF.
And that is the nub of the argument made by N Ram in his comprehensive piece. Irrespective of any other reductions in price Modi government may have got from France – N Ram mentions the 9% discount but in return, Modi government gave up the ‘options’ clause for an additional 50% offer – the decision to buy only 36 Rafale fighter jets instead of 126 as asked by the IAF made the Rafale aircraft more expensive.
This was primarily due to design and development cost – and this is important, only design and development, not any fittings of fixtures – for 13 India Specific Enhancements, which is a fixed cost, irrespective of whether you buy 1 or 1000 Rafale aircraft. By buying only 36 aircraft instead of 126 and removing the options clause for an additional 18 Rafale jets, Modi government ended up paying far more than it saved. This is irrespective of any other saving Modi government claims and those claims of savings are, in fact, completely unrelated to N Ram’s central argument.
At the same event, a former Vice Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal SB Deo (retd) – who had shot himself in his crotch with his personal weapon at night a few hours before his retirement last year – went into an incomprehensible tirade. His funniest claim was that those putting out the list of 13 India Specific Enhancement were committing ‘treason,’ and he perhaps doesn’t realise that N Ram took adequate care to not mention even one of those in his article whereas the same have been described in great detail by many defence journalists who are the mouthpieces of the BJP.
N Ram’s article seems to have rattled the Modi government so much that a very large number of personal attacks have been carried out against him from various quarters in the name of fact-check. While no one has ever made any explanation matching that of N Ram, some journalists even claimed that they had broken the story first. Even a lay reader knows that it is not true, and those who used plants provided by the Modi government and Anil Ambani, asking Dassault CEO planted questions without any cross questioning, should be the last ones to claim so.
As for the other so-called ‘fact-checks’ with petty personal attacks on N Ram being run by myriad characters, they can be aptly dismissed by a version of military put-down: “When N Ram was reporting on defence and uniform, these guys were not even in liquid form.”
Here is my reading of the official reply from the spokesperson of the Defence Ministry to N Ram’s article. Full of contradictions and misleading propositions, he doesn’t deny anything but only proves the article right.
I go though the so-called denial of The Hindu story by MoD spokesperson and find that it confirms everything that @nramind has written about the Rafale Scam. Here is how I read that statement. pic.twitter.com/eR6EGyDAxO
— Dushyant (@atti_cus) January 19, 2019