Rafale: With 15 questions for Rahul, FM counters Cong

NEW DELHI: In a counter-offensive against Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s charge of corruption in the Rafale deal, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday that Rahul’s claims on pricing and procedure were false and the NDA government got a better price for both the basic fighter and the weaponised version than what was being negotiated by UPA.
Jaitley said the price quoted for the French fighter by Congress was under negotiation by UPA and never finalised and was for the basic aircraft.
The claim that NDA’s price was three times as much incorrectly compared the basic aircraft with a fully weaponised fighter, which was misleading, he said.
The minister asserted that NDA had got a better deal on pricing both for the basic fighter and for the aircraft with its weapons suite.
He said if the 3% escalation cost — in UPA terms — and variation in foreign exchange values were taken into account, the basic fighter would have cost 9% more, as per UPA terms. He said even with the loaded version, the NDA deal was close to 20% cheaper than the price that was being negotiated by UPA.

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