Why hide price of Rafale jets? Pawar

Pune: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said on Tuesday the Narendra Modi government should not have any problem in divulging the price of the Rafale fighter jets since it was not a technological subject.

The former defence minister said the Rafale aircraft was very useful for the country’s defence as far as its technological aspects were concerned.

“Today, the Congress and other parties are raising the (Rafale) pricing issue and, according to me, the government should not have any problem in divulging the price details of the deal,” Pawar told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Pune.

The former Union minister questioned the “confidential agreement” cited by the government to deny making the details public. “I, too, was a defence minister and a confidential agreement has information about its technology and the capacity, but price is not a technological subject.”

Led by the Congress, the Opposition parties have been attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party government over the Rs 58,000-crore deal, alleging it was procuring 36 Rafale jets from France at an exorbitantly high cost. The government has denied the charge, contending that it was getting the jets cheaper than what the UPA dispensation had agreed upon.

Pawar stressed that utmost care should be taken to conceal technological aspects of the fighter jets, but there should not be any problem in divulging the price details.

Taking a dig at the government for saying it was not possible to share the price details, he said the same people used to insist on getting all the information about the Bofors deal whenever it was discussed in Parliament.

“Right from Sushma Swaraj to other leaders, all used to demand that they must get all the information, including technological (details). “There were instances of the House getting stalled for several days (on the issue),” the veteran parliamentarian added.