Do you know why the title of this article has some capital letters and others in sentence case (not in caps)? The answer is simple – the capital letters spell RAFALE.
In the past few months, once in every 25-45 days, when there is no other drama they can enact on Social Media or inside parliament, the Pappu-led Congress starts playing the Rafale card against Modi Sarkar.
As per Pappu, the so-called Rafale Scam was worth ₹58,000 crores on February 21, 2018 (he had not ascertained its value before becoming Congress President).
As he matured more in his new role over the next 23 days, the value of the scam came down by 38%, to ₹36,000 crores on March 16, 2018. In three days, the value rose by over 11.1%. Will tutors of this 48-year-old child at least teach him to be consistent with his figures?
Furthermore, at a press conference (PC) addressed by three Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, RS Surjewala, and Jitendra Singh on March 10, 2018 (six days before Pappu’s March 16 tweet), Congress alleged that the Modi government caused a loss of ₹12,632 crores to the public exchequer in the Rafale deal. Azad claimed at the PC that the Modi government could have saved ₹41,212 crores had it not cancelled the deal struck by UPA-2 for 126 Rafale jets.
Look at the contradiction in Congress figures.
They think WE THE PEOPLE are gullible and will believe anything they say. They still don’t realize that we gave them a drubbing in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, because we have finally seen through all their lies and deceit over the years.
Anyways, being a naturally curious person, when I heard Pappu say that Modi had paid ₹1100 crores more per plane than what the UPA-2 government had negotiated, I decided to do an investigation myself, and here are my findings.
The proposal to buy new fighter jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF) was put forth in the year 2000, during Vajpayee’s rule. In order to replace the aged MiG-21 aircraft (also known as the “flying coffin”), a case to procure 126 Mirage-2000 aircraft was initiated, which was later converted to a procurement of 126 MMRCAs (Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft).
A Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued only in August, 2007, during UPA-2, for 126 MMRCAs, 18 in “fly-away” condition, and 108 to be built in India by the PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), under transfer of technology (TOT).
Six companies submitted bids, including Dassault Aviation of France (for Rafale), Eurofighter GmbH of Germany-Italy-Spain-UK (Eurofighter Typhoon), RAC-MiG of Russia (MiG-35-Fulcrum), SAAB International of Sweden (JAS39 Gripen), Boeing of USA (for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet jets) and Lockheed Martin of USA (F-16 IN Super Viper).
IAF conducted technical evaluations until May, 2009. Flight evaluation started in August 2009, at Bangalore. The F/A-18E/F and F-16IN completed their field trials by mid-September 2009. The Rafale began trials in late September 2009. As of late October 2009, the IAF has completed the trials of F/A-18, F-16, Rafale, and MiG-35. The Swedish JAS39 Gripen was the last of the aircraft to be evaluated by the IAF. On March 22, 2010, two Gripens left Bangalore, one to Jaisalmer and the other to Leh, Ladakh. Prior to the Gripen, four out of the five aircraft had issues restarting their engines during trials conducted in Leh. The Gripen completed its high altitude tests in Leh and other hot weather tests at Jaisalmer.
Updated bids were requested by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in April, 2010. On December 18, the IAF chief said: “evaluation of the fighters has been completed and the matter is now with the MOD.” On April 27, 2011 (seven years after the process to replace the aged MiG 29s began), the UPA-2 government declared that Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon had met its criteria. The two competing financial bids were opened on November 4, 2011.
On January 31, 2012, the government announced that Dassault’s Rafale had won the competition and was selected for exclusive negotiations, due to its lower unit cost and lower overall lifecycle cost (compared to the Eurofighter) due to lower fuel consumption and simpler maintenance requirements.
IN ORDER TO READ MORE AND TO FIND OUT THE EXACT CALCULATIONS OF COST DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE UPA DEAL AND THE NDA DEAL, PLEASE BUY A COPY OF MY BOOK “1914: NaMo or MoNa” from Amazon at https://www.amazon.in/1914-NaMo-MoNa-2019-2014/dp/1642498459/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1538328841&sr=8-2&keywords=Amit+Bagaria or from FLIPKART.