BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has threatened to take the legal route if the government goes ahead with the Rafale jet deal with France citing faults in the aircraft.
A report in the Hindustan Times says that while the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in France, the two countries are set to push through a deal for the purchase of 40 Rafale aircrafts for the Indian Air Force in a deal estimated to be close to $4 billion. Swamy in his statement has said that the deal “if clinched would embarrass the BJP government at the Centre” further adding that the aircraft was less fuel-efficient and lacked “essential performance characteristics”.
The former Cabinet minister also added that no country was willing to purchase the aircraft and several countries like Switzerland had cancelled MoUs with the French manufacturer Dassault after trying out their Rafale aircraft. Swamy further adds that the performance of the aircrafts was “the worst of all the aircrafts” in Libya and Egypt.
The BJP leader also wrote that another reason for avoiding the deal was because the original deal which happened under the previous UPA government was “corrupt”, alleging that the wife of the former French President, Carla Bruni, was involved in negotiating the transaction with two sisters of Sonia Gandhi, Ms Anushka and Ms Nadia.
“It is better to buy Dassault company itself than their planes”, he further wrote, saying that the deal would then be more useful and cost-effective. But if the Prime Minister still goes through with the deal “then I will have no option but to approach the Court in a PIL to get it set aside”, Swamy threatens.