Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s allegations caused a stir in the Ambani empire as the former claimed that the latter had a lack of experience and expertise in defence manufacturing. The joint venture between Dassault and Reliance Defence was apparently given a go-ahead by the Centre. Anil Ambani rubbished Rahul’s aforementioned claims of inexperience and allegedly wrote a detailed letter to Gandhi giving an explanation about the rationale behind the contract.
Anugrah Narayan Singh, the Uttarakhand Congress in-charge on July 26 alleged that the Modi led government has done a favour to Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group through the Rafale jet fighter deal. India suffered major loss in the deal, he informed reporters.
In the letter to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Ambani has specified that his group’s joint venture with Dassault to build defence and aerospace parts was a deal between two private sector entities. “The French and the Indian government had no role to play in it,” the letter said.
“Not only do we have the necessary experience but we are also the leaders in several important areas of defence manufacture,” he said in the letter.
Ambani also added that Reliance Defence has the largest shipyard at Pipavav in Gujarat and is currently building five Naval Offshore Patrol Vessels (NOPVs) for the Indian Navy and 14 Fast Patrol Vessels for the Indian Coast Guard.
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“The decision of the Government of India to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was made through an inter-governmental agreement signed between the two countries. Also, all these 36 aircraft are being manufactured in France and will be delivered on a ‘fly away’ basis from Dassault manufacturing facilities in France to the Indian Air Force and no Indian company has any role to play,” he said.
“Dassault choose Reliance Group as its joint venture partner to meet the ‘offset’ or export obligation component of the deal and this was an independent agreement between two corporate private sector entities and Governments had no role to play in this matter,” the letter stated.
Rahul Gandhi has quite a few times brought up this deal which he claims was signed by the Modi-led government at a much higher price than the previous UPA regime had negotiated. During the debate on the no-confidence motion which took place in the Lok Sabha, he accused the government of changing the deal to benefit ‘one businessman’.
He was also saddened by the Congress making such statements.
“I fully appreciate that in the midst of the heat and dust of political campaigning, as in the recent context of elections in Gujarat, a lot has been said. Nonetheless, considering that my entire family and I, starting with my respected father, have had the privilege of enjoying a very respectful relationship with the Gandhi family over generations as well as the Congress party for the past more than four decades, these statements have saddened and hurt our sentiments,” he said in the letter.
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