Carrying Forward the Rafale Debate: Seven Straight Questions for Rahul Gandhi

In July 2011, Congress-led UPA Government cleared a $2.4 billion deal with French company Dassault for upgradation of 52 Mirage-2000 in the arsenal of Indian Air Force. The cost of the upgradation program was pegged at $2.4 billion while another $1 billion was earmarked for weapons systems to be procured for the upgraded Mirage jets. Additionally, $500 million was earmarked for developing a new facility for HAL in Bangalore to execute the upgradation program under supervision of Dassault and with equipment supplied by Dassault.

In total, UPA concluded a deal worth $ 3.9 billion for upgradation of aircrafts which were 20-25 years old then. The deal went through in spite of reservations from certain quarters on whether it was worth spending that much on upgrading crafts which are past their prime instead of spending the same amount of mine on acquiring new platforms for IAF. One wonders what Rahul Gandhi’s stand was on this then.

Circa 2018

It is now amply clear that Rahul Gandhi would try to make Modi Government’s Rafale deal a key theme for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and would try to spin stories around some imaginary scams that never happened in reality. Nevertheless, quite a few things have never been (quite expectedly) clarified by Rahul Gandhi. Let us take the figure which Rahul Gandhi quoted during his speech in Parliament, which is Rs 520 crore that as per him (albeit without any documentary evidence) was the amount per aircraft, which UPA had negotiated with Dassault compared to Rs 1600 crore per craft ( as per Rahul Gandhi) that Modi Government has paid in the Rafale Deal. In that case, here are
the following questions for Rahul Gandhi.

What was Rahul Gandhi’s Stand on UPA’s Controversial Mirage Upgradation Deal with Dassault?

Did Rahul Gandhi speak against UPAs Mirage upgradation deal with Dassault in 2011? If not and if it is so that he had no problem with UPA spending $3.9 billion on modernisation of nearly 25 year old platforms, then why is it that the same Rahul Gandhi has a problem if Modi Government went ahead with a deal with the same Dassault for purchase of 36 brand new 4.5 generation crafts for $ 8.9 billion laced with a multitude of weapon systems, complemented with whole array of spares and performance guarantee as well as India specific customisations?

Does Rahul Gandhi’s figure of Rs 520 crore a piece include cost of Weapons? If not, why?

Does Rahul Gandhi’s figure of Rs 520 crore per craft include cost of weapon systems that ideally should come with the new platforms, including missiles like SCALP and METEOR? It is important for Rahul Gandhi to answer this since merely quoting the price of the basic platform makes no sense if the costs of the accompanying weapon systems are not included. Even the best of the combat platforms of the world are nothing but deadwood without state-of-the-art arsenal to complement them. It is reported that the Rafales that Modi Government has ordered , would be armed with
METEOR BVRAAM ( Beyond Visual Range Air to Air Missile) with range over 100 Km and SCALP air launched cruise missiles with range of over 500 Km. What had UPA’s deal to offer in terms of complimentary weapons systems? No one knows if at all any was ever considered for. Does Rahul Gandhi’s Price of Rs 520 crore a piece include cost of training, spares and performance guarantee? If not, why?

Did the price quoted by Rahul Gandhi, i.e. Rs 520 crore per craft, a Life-Cycle cost? Did that include the cost of spares, maintenance, performance based logistics and training?

The reason why this question needs to be answered by Rahul Gandhi is because it has been reported that the Rafales ordered for by Modi Government would have a five year performance guarantee (Read Here) and maintenance commitment by Dassault wherein at any point of time keeping 75% of the entire Rafale fleet operationally available would be the responsibility of the OEM, i.e. Dassault. It does not seem that the figure of Rs 520 crore being quoted by Rahul Gandhi even had any supplementary deal for performance guarantee, spares and training because each of these comes at an additional price over and above the basic price of the platform.

Does Rahul Gandhi’s Price of Rs 520 crore a piece, include cost of India Specific Customisations? If not, why?

Also, it is important for Rahul Gandhi to clarify as to whether his figure of Rs 520 crore that he tom-toms had any clause for India specific enhancements and customisations. Reports indicate that the Rafales Modi Government has ordered for, has India specific customisations for making them capable of not just carrying French missiles but also Russian air-to-air missiles, Indo Russian cruise missiles like Brahmos and also possibly nuclear weapons if the need be. Did the Rafales that were being negotiated by UPA at a price of Rs 520 crore, as per Rahul Gandhi, had any of these? Highly doubtful.

Can Rahul Gandhi answer why UPA, in spite of two years of negotiation, failed to conclude the deal with Dassault for Rafale jets?

Rahul Gandhi should also tell the people of India as to why in spite of two years of protracted negotiations UPA failed to conclude a deal with Dassault for Rafale. What stopped Rahul Gandhi from making sure that the deal was clinched? Why did his figure of Rs 520 crore not found any takers in Dassault? Even for a Light Combat Aircraft like Tejas, MK 1A, which comes nowhere near a Dassualt Rafale in terms of capability, HAL is asking for Rs 463 crore per craft . In that case how feasible is this imaginary figure of Rs 520 crore for a 4.5 generation craft if one is to buy it along with spares, training support, weapons systems and specific customisations? In plain and simple terms,
what India would have got for that contested figure of Rs 520 crore per craft, would have looked exactly like how a TATA Truck chassis looks like when it comes out of the assembly line. Does Rahul Gandhi’s definition of a perfect fighter plane sum up to that?

Is Rahul Gandhi aware that in Modi Govt’s Rafale Deal has a 50% Offset and Local Sourcing Clause?

Further, is Rahul Gandhi aware that while the Offset clauses mandated 30 percent of the deal amount to be invested back in India, in case of Modi Government’s Rafale deal, 50% of the contracted amount of $8.9 billion will be invested back in India, of which 30% would be offset obligations through investment in military and aerospace development in India while another 20% would be sourcing of components of Rafale from India? This means that of the Rs 59,000 crore worth deal around Rs 29,500 crore would be invested back in India. Can Rahul Gandhi elaborate if UPA’s offset deal could have matched this?

Is Rahul Gandhi aware of the Offset Clauses made by UPA in 2012?

While time and again Rahul Gandhi had mentioned the name of particular businessman and questioned why his company got most the offset contracts of the Rafale deal, one should ask Rahul Gandhi if he is aware of Defence Offset Guidelines that were prepared during UPA era by Defence Minister A K Anthony. As per the ‘Defence Procurement Procedure- Revision of Defence Offset Guidelines ’ approved by Defence Acquisition Council on 23 rd July, 2012, as per section 4.3, ‘The OEM/vendor/Tier-I sub-vendor will be free to select the Indian offset partner for implementing the offset obligation provided the IOP has not been barred from doing business by the Ministry of
Defence.’ This mean whether the Offset Partner would be company X or company Y or a PSU would not depend on Government of India but on the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), which in case of Rafale deal is Dassault Aviation.

The question for Rahul Gandhi therefore is this: what stopped UPA from making it mandatory in Defence Offset Guidelines of Defence Procurement Procedure that the Offset Partner has to be necessarily a PSU? Was it kept that way to benefit certain companies during UPA era? Let a few uncomfortable questions on the rise of companies like Offset India Solutions during UPA era be asked. Incidentally Ministry of Defence in 2018 (Read Here ) has banned all kinds of dealings with Offset India Solutions while its promoter Sanjay Bhandari is presently absconding.

Nailing the Blatant Lies

Irrespective of what some of the UPA leaders may chest-thump, Dassault never agreed for complete transfer of technology during negotiations with UPA for 126 aircrafts. They also neither agreed to the price offered by UPA nor did they ever agree to take guarantee for production quality if they were to be built by HAL under license. Estimated cost of the deal of UPA also had skyrocketed to around $30 billion and thus it remained stuck. No progress was made beyond that. Frankly speaking, in spite of depleting fleet of IAF, UPA did nothing to shore up its combat squadrons for over a decade.

The prime reason why Modi Government had to scrap the MMRCA deal and go for a fresh contract for outright purchase 36 front line strike aircrafts was because the MMRCA project of UPA had reached a dead end in spite of being in the process for around seven years. A new procurement program through global tender would have taken another decade and thus, given the depleting fleet of IAF and rising firepower of both Pakistan and Chinese Air Force, the most feasible option was to make outright purchase through a Government to Government (G2G) deal. Modi’s Rafale deal for 36 aircrafts in fly away conditions is exactly that quick fix that IAF needed.

Source: Postcard