Rafale deal scandal bigger than Bofors: Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha

The virulent criticism of Sourie and Sinha-both known tormentors of Modi within the party comes at a time when Congress President Rahul Gandhi has made the issue a weapon in his crusade against the ruling BJP-led NDA at the Centre.

The deal was signed in 2016 for 36 Rafale fighter jets.

According to media reports, while addressing a press conference along with senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, the former ministers called the deal "a textbook case of criminal misconduct" and demanded a forensic audit of the entire deal by the government's top auditor.

They said it is "not an ordinary scandal" and was bigger than any that India has seen.

"I can tell you as a person who handled the matter in regard to Bofors... that Bofors was absolutely nothing compared to this," Arun Shourie said.

The 1986 Bofors Howitzer gun deal had created an upheaval in Indian politics and was believed to have deprived then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from returning to power in the 1989 general election.

Quoting a February 16, 2017 press release by French manufacturer Dassault Aviation and Reliance Defence, and a financial press release statement of Dassault for 2016, Bhushan, Shourie and Sinha said the total price of 36 aircraft is about ₹60,000 crore, which works out to be ₹1,660 crore per plane.

“This is more than double the price of the aircraft under the original 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) and almost ₹1,000 crore higher per aircraft than the price furnished by the government itself, to Parliament on November 18, 2016,” they said in a joint press statement.

Shourie urged the opposition parties to raise the issue in the “same manner as the BJP had raised Bofors, which pales into insignificance when compared to the Rafale scandal”.

Rahul Gandhi, who has recently taken up the Rafale issue in his campaign against the Modi Government, attacked  Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in parliament last month, accusing her of lying to the country when she made a statement in Parliament, saying that the pact was a "secret" and hence did not  allow the government to put out details of the deal.

Sitharaman, however, denied the allegation quoting the French President Emmanuel Macron's interviews to two media organisations.

Prashant Bhushan said the government was hiding behind the secrecy clause because "they know as soon as they put the papers on the table, the game will be up".
He said the  "biggest travesty of the scandal" was that national security had been compromised. “The IAF required 126 aircraft. They would be getting 36 only by 2022. If this does not compromise national interest and security, what does ?" he asked.