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April 20, 2024 2:00 AM

India

Are there similarities between Bofors and Rafale controversies ? After all both are defense deals ?

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The Rafale imbroglio is repeating the once most controvertial bombshell of merely 60 crores Bofors kick back that not only haunted the Congress party and the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi for long but also led to his political dethroning leading to his own one time stooge Raja of Manda Vishwanath Pratap Singh climb to power with the help of the then non Congress opposition.

Though politically embattered Rajiv Gandhi finally got acquitted of the charge, but after his sad assasination. Then the ruling Congress party was on the back foot but today on the similar lines the current BJP led political dispensation under the prime ministership of Narendra Modi is in an unambiguous defensive, putting its several union ministers as trouble shooters on the job to counter the impending Congress invasion on Rafale.

While the Bofors kick back deal revolved around a petty amount of Rs 60 crores the current loss in the controvertial Rafale deal of France with Dassault aviation is in several thousand crores, say over 60 thousand crores, according to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.

In the Bofors deal it is said that the then Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was not directly involved but there were allegedly middleman like Quaterrochi of Italy who were named as the recipient of the bribe through the former but in the present case the Nehru Gandhi scion, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the basis of the startling disclosure of the former French president Francois Hollande and later on by the Dassault Aviation’s technical heads followed by the wife of the present president Brigate Macron has allegedly pinned the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi as directly helping Anil Ambani of Reliance Defence bag the offset contract worth 30 thousand crores, out rightly rejected by the government and its ministers as completely baseless, frivolous, biased and fabricated.

While the former President Francoise Hollande on whose tenure and presence the deal was finalised has unambiguously revealed that after he was told for the favor, the France govt n Dassault had no choice but to accept it.

Similarly the wife of the present president Macron’s wife ( as per the article published in one of the dailies, Dainik Bhaskar written by its editor Gyanendra Pandey) said that the magnitude of the scam done in the Rafale deal and the staggering amount involved in it could have conveniently improvised/ altered the diminishing economy of a country in financial mess/ doldrums.

The first woman of France and its president Macron’s wife even went to the extent of shockingly questioning as to how a prime minister of any country betray the people of his own country by committing such a blunder.

As a result the most vociferous Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his entire media team that include former minister n youth Congress president Anand Sharma, AICC’s communication incharge n chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, Abhishekh Manu Singhvi, Kapil Sibbal and Manish Tiwari etc have got enough ammunition who’ve tightened their belts and enhanced attacks on the ruling party dispensation at the centre and PM Modi through holding repeated press conferences, tweet attacks and addressing public mertings in the states likely to go to polls viz. Rajasthan, MP and Chattisgarh n even in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP who’d fielded intelligent n eloquent Sambit Patra, Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Arun Jaitley and even the national party supremo Amit Shah are also doing their best to counter the Congress party’s onslaughts but after the startling disclosures of the former French president Hollande they seem to have come under defensive posture say political analysts.

Everybody know that the way prime minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah duo have been leading the saffron party’s jaggernaut towards incessant n seamless victories in state after state demolishing Congress party and the Samajwadi party’s strongholds in over twenty states after 2014 despite some failures on the demonetisation, GST, inflation, farmers suicides and banking fraud fronts, it looked as if the BJP is all set to te climb to the power saddle in 2019 and stage a comeback with the same enthusiasm as it had been doing in all the states of the country, but unfortunately eruption of conyrovertial issues like Rafale, banking frauds, incessant increase in petro product prices, LPG etc – highest since the last 70 years, and subsequent inflation, the party’s expeditiously forward moving juggarnaut seems to have developed serious flaws and defects finding itself difficult to continue its winning spree.

The continuous demand of the Congress led opposition for the JPC, CAG or CVC probe has also been turned down thus allegedly giving an unambiguous impression that something is definitely wrong and arbitrary in the French deal despite every condemnation by the union ministers in the government and saffron party leaders.

The best way to come out of this ever deteriorating situation is to go for an impartial JPC probe as demanded by the opposition as the country wants to know the truth threadbare say political analysts. What’s your take friends?

Sunil Negi hails from Uttarakhand and is a veteran journalist and author. He is a prolific writer and has carved a name for himself in the media world. He received the 'Golden Achiever Award' in the '90th AIAC Excellence Awards 2019' for his book ''Havoc in Heaven'' based on the tragedy that struck Uttarakhand in which thousands of people lost their lives. He is also the President of Uttarakhand Journalists Forum and majorly writes on Politics, Current Affairs, and Social Issues.

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