Flap over fighter jets

AS the crucial Gujarat elections draw closer, controversies are bound to multiply in the political marketplace. The Modi Government's unusual deal for purchasing 36 Rafale fighter jets from France was certain to figure in the laundry list of allegations against the ruling arrangement. Fresh from a resounding victory in 2014, PM Narendra Modi had championed the belief that a rules-based framework for selecting vendors was superfluous when the tiller of national security was in the hands of self-accredited desh bhakts. Thus the new Government scrapped a tender floated 10 years back which had painstakingly tested the wares of six competitors and selected the French plane Rafale. The process was questioned by Yashwant Sinha, now in the dissident camp, forcing officials to run a fine toothcomb over the deal.

Eyebrows were bound to be raised after PM Modi decided to abruptly scrap this tender. And just before his visit to France, he announced that India will buy just 36 planes instead of 126 with no technology transfer to boot. Its original Indian partner HAL was junked and the baton handed over to a wet-behind-the-ears Anil Ambani company. Doubters are now highlighting the simplistic notion that the Modi Government had inked a deal that is far costlier per plane than the one negotiated by the UPA Government. It is dangerous and foolhardy to equate a sophisticated defence platform with purchasing a consumer durable. 

A country’s national security requirements can scarcely be met if each defence deal becomes the basis for political name-calling and innuendoes. No one knows it better than the BJP which is trying to resurrect the Bofors ghost in an attempt to tar the Gandhis. At the same time, the BJP's overused tactics of counter-questioning the Congress for defence deals in its tenure is bound to be self-injurious, especially when the much talked up make-in-India cupboard remains bare. The cause of national security will be better served with a dollop of transparency. Instead of another defence deal sinking in the quagmire of misgivings, the Government needs to clear the air as soon as possible.