At the doorsteps of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress might as well have egg on its face. Its strategy for the elections was to zero in on the Modi government’s Rafale deal with a French aviation firm, in which the grand old party projected a huge scam. Notably, the CAG report on the Rafale deal being tabled in Parliament Wednesday after intense scrutiny has given its stamp of approval for the deal. It has concluded that the deal fixed by the Modi government was about three per cent cheaper than the deal mooted by the previous UPA II government.
In recent times Congress president Rahul Gandhi had been trumping up the Rafale charges, and calling Prime Minister Modi a “chor.” He kept shouting “Chowkidar Chor Hai,” the allusion being to the PM’s claim to being the “chowkidar” of national interests. The Congress and its chief kept arguing that the NDA government’s price fixation for the deal was much higher than that of the UPA offer for the fighter jets deal, but that the whole deal smacked of favouritism to industrialist Anil Ambani by officially making his firm the intermediary for the deal. It also alleged that this involved a loss of as high as Rs 3,000 crore to the Indian Air Force, which was meant to go into Anil Ambani’s kitty – and by extension, a part thereof to the BJP or those at the helm of government.
The Rafale deal, it was already clear, was an improvement on the previous defence deals in which the main commission agents were foreigners, or more specifically Italians in some cases like Bofors. A special provision this time meant, instead, that one or other Indian agency would be involved. It turned out to be Anil Ambani. Commissions are integral to all defence deals.
Rahul Gandhi kept hurling unparliamentary, objectionable and shameful terms like “chor” on the Prime Minister. Decency and dignity demanded that the Congress leader avoided stooping to such a low level. Sonia Gandhi, despite her limitations as a politician, maintained high dignity in her public speeches. Her undoing, though, was the UPA II scams. Now Rahul Gandhi makes bold to call the CAG the “Chowkidar Accountant General.” Till two days ago, the Congress party was pushing for tabling of the CAG report in Parliament!
Be that as it may, Rafale will be the Congress’s raison d’etre for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.