Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the row over the purchase of the Rafale fighter jets is a “perception battle”, accusing the Congress of running a smear campaign against the government at an international level. “We will fight this. We’ll go to places and state facts on record on Rafale,” she said, according to news agency ANI. Sitharaman assertion and the BJP’s counter-attack came on a day the Congress approached the Central Vigilance Commission to seek a probe into the purchase. Minutes after Sitharaman’s assertion, the ruling BJP launched a counter-offensive and hit back at the Congress and party chief Rahul Gandhi’s family with its own set of allegations. BJP leader and junior minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said the campaign against the Rafale deal was part of a conspiracy to get the purchase cancelled, demoralise the Indian Air Force and get back at Dassault Aviation. “A conspiracy is being brewed to cancel the deal, a conspiracy is being brewed to lower the morale of the air force... behind it there is only one reason.. to remove prime minister Modi,” he said at a press conference at the Bharatiya Janata Party office. “Congress is seeking the support of global and anti-national forces to remove Modi,” he alleged. The opposition party was only trying to rake up the matter for political gains, he said, adding Gandhi had not even answered some questions posed to him by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on the matter in the past few days.<doc-sep>Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday called the ongoing row over the Rafale deal a battle of perceptions. “We will fight this battle,” NDTV quoted Sitharaman as saying. “Many of us will be speaking across the country. Facts have to come out.” The minister said Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s allegations have “international dimensions”. The Opposition party has accused the government of causing a loss to the exchequer and unfairly favouring “businessman friends”. Earlier in the day, the Congress submitted a memorandum to the Central Vigilance Committee and demanded an investigation into the matter. It had also submitted a memorandum to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India last week. On September 21, French media outlet Mediapart quoted former French President Francois Hollande as saying that the Indian government proposed the name of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence for an offset contract with Dassault Aviation, which manufactures the jets. India’s Ministry of Defence has denied that it proposed Reliance Defence’s name while France said it is “in no manner” involved in choosing French companies’ industrial partners for projects in India. In a separate statement, Dassault Aviation said it had chosen Reliance Defence for the project. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and others in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government have also refuted the Opposition party’s allegations. Jaitley said attempts were being made to create a controversy on the basis of Hollande’s statement. The deal In 2012, the United Progressive Alliance government started negotiating with Dassault to buy 126 Medium Multi-Rule Combat Aircraft. At the time, it was proposed that Dassault would supply 18 Rafale jets in fly-away condition while state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, along with the company, would manufacture 108 aircraft in India. However, the deal did not work out. In September 2016, India agreed to purchase 36 Rafale aircraft worth Rs 59,000 crore from France after signing the deal. Later that year, Reliance Defence joined the deal’s offset programme through Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd, in which it holds a 51% stake. Dassault Aviation owns 49% of the joint venture, which was announced in India in October 2016.<doc-sep>
Nirmala Sitharaman said the centre wasn't worried about facing charges in the Rafale row. Highlights Nirmala Sitharaman said that she would lead a nationwide campaign "We need to fight the perception battle," the defence minister said She said Rahul Gandhi's allegations had an "international dimension" Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, referring to the Congress broadside on the Rafale jet deal, said today that she would lead a nationwide campaign to "fight the perception battle" with a series of press conferences. "We need to fight the perception battle. Many of us will be speaking across the country. Facts have to come out," Nirmala Sitharaman said. The minister also targeted Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying his allegations had an "international dimension" and would be exposed. The Congress has upped the ante against the government after former French president Francois Hollande commented last week to the French media that France had been given no choice about picking Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence as Dassault's offset partner in 2016. Rahul Gandhi has seized the Mr Hollande comment to bombard the government with questions and allegations. "An ex-president of France is calling him (the prime minister of India) a thief. It's a question of the dignity of the office of the prime minister," he told reporters. The Congress has targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Nirmala Sitharaman for not disclosing the purchase price of the 36 aircraft citing confidentiality. "Their disclosure is even more intriguing when both Dassault and Reliance have disclosed the price in the Annual Report, 2016, and the press release dated February 16, 2017," said the Congress, alleging a "shoddy cover-up, the self-defeating assertions and the deliberate lies".