New Delhi, July 30: In a latest development related to the Rafale controversy, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has responded to Rahul Gandhi’s allegation of favouring Anil Ambani’s Defence Company in securing an offset contract with Dassault Aviation. According to a report of CNN News18, the BJP has released a document in response to the Congress president’s allegation. The document revealed that the Dassault Aviation gave offset contracts to multiple companies and not just Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

According to the report, the document also revealed that the Indian companies got 50 percent offset contracts in the deal as compared to 30 percent  in the deal negotiated by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. From the time the Modi government concluded the deal, the opposition has raised questions over the 50 percent offset contract between Dassault and Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited (Reliance Defence Ltd) .

Congress blamed PM Modi for favoring Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence Ltd. and helping the company procure a Rs 30,000 crore deal as an Indian partner to Dassault, mainly because Reliance has no expertise in this field. The Congress also accused that large sections of the defence offset has been given to a private contractor and not to Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) despite the public sector company having an expertise in the defence sector.

According to the proposed deal of the UPA government, the offset contract were to be given to HAL. The agreement was also signed on Mach 13, 2014 regarding this. However, after coming to power, the BJP government scrapped the old deal and signed a fresh one for procuring 36 Rafale Jets in ready-to-fly condition.’

During the debate on ‘no-confidence motion’ in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi also alleged the central government for not disclosing the price of each jet. According to the Congress president, the government is hiding the details of the deal despite there being no such ‘secrecy clause’ in the deal. However, not only the Centre but also the French government also denied the Congress president's allegations.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 30, 2018 05:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).