The Congress on Wednesday asserted that there had been no “government-to-government” pact with France for the Rafale aircraft as the French government had never done a government-to-government contract on defence in the past.
“This is not a government-to-government contract,” senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal told reporters, adding that there was no such procedure in France unlike in the United States where a deal could be done under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route.
‘Not compliant’
Continuing the party’s campaign against the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, Mr. Sibal said the Centre should not have signed a contract with Dassault after it turned “non-compliant” by not giving assurances both on aircraft quality, and on the number of man-hours required for manufacturing the jet.
“In this case, the people who negotiated the deal were Dassault representatives along with [CEO] Eric Trappier himself and the Ministry of Defence and Air Force officials and the only thing that happened was that the Government of France gave a confirmation letter that negotiations were held with Dassault,” Mr. Sibal contended.