New Delhi: The Congress manifesto released by Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday promises that it will launch an investigation into the controversial Rafale deal signed by the Narendra Modi government with Dassault Aviation for 36 fighter jets if the party is voted to power.
“Congress will cause to be investigated several deals entered into by the BJP Government in the last 5 years and, in particular, the Rafale deal (sic),” the manifesto says as part of the promises made under the anti-corruption plank.
Just before the release of the vision document, which has been titled ‘Congress will deliver’, Bhalchandra Mungekar, a member of the manifesto committee said that the inquiry into the Rafale deal will be initiated on the “first day after coming to power”.
The Congress, led by its president Rahul Gandhi, has repeatedly accused the NDA government of wrongdoings in the Rs 59,000 crore deal and has accused the Prime Minister directly of corruption.
Gandhi has alleged that Modi conducted parallel negotiations and scrapped the earlier deal agreed by the UPA government to give Anil Ambani firm Reliance Defence the offset contract worth Rs 30,000.
A review plea for a CBI investigation in the deal is currently pending before the Supreme Court, but the Congress had repeatedly demanded that a parliamentary probe committee should look into the deal.
The government and the BJP have denied allegations, saying that the UPA deal was never finalized and the new deal is a government-to-government one that reduces any scope of corruption.
It has also strongly opposed releasing the price details of the aircraft and any probe into the deal, citing that the deal concerns national security and its terms cannot be made public.
Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has also promised a probe into the deal and described it as “the mother of all scams in the country” in its manifesto.
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