Confirms What We’ve Said: Shourie on Hollande’s Claim on Rafale

Economist Arun Shourie talks to The Quint on the latest development in the Rafale deal chaos.

Arun Shourie speaks at the launch of his new book ‘Anita Gets Bail’ at the India International Centre on 1 May 2018.

(Photo: PTI)

On Friday, 21 September, the former French president Francois Hollande told a French newspaper that France was not given an option of choosing a local partner for Dassault Aeronautics. Hollande also said that Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence was chosen by the Indian government.

The statement made by Holland triggered a massive uproar in the Opposition camp, with the Congress President Rahul Gandhi going on to say that PM Modi has “betrayed the nation”.

Economist Arun Shourie, in an exclusive interview with The Quint, said that Hollande’s claims have confirmed everything that they (the critics) have been saying.

He also said Dassault, being a premier Aerospace manufacturer, couldn’t have chosen a company with Rs 1.21 lakh crore debt as its partner.

How would a company with an experience like Dassault have chosen a company as a partner in India on its own whose group is under debt of Rs 1 lakh 21 thousand crore. Which has been registered just 10 days before the deal, which has absolutely no experience in defence production. How could Dassault have chosen this company on its own?

Arun Shourie

He also said that PM Modi was the one person who had brought this deal in, as said in past statements.

He (PM Modi) violated everything that is laid down in defence procurement policy and in the offset guidelines. And he has no authority to do this.

Shourie further said that in order to protect PM Modi, ministers like Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman also had to lie. He also said that the government has taken the lies to the parliament as well.

“PM’s role is a matter of investigation by a court-supervised investigative team. Second, a privilege motion should be moved by the Opposition parties against the govt for lying in the Parliament. Third, the journalists who have been peddling lies, and the TV channels and newspapers which gave so much space to the lies of Sitaraman and Jaitley should look at their faces in the mirrors. They are not doing their job..”

Arun Shourie