Speak up, ‘suit-boot walla’ Prime Minister

Lies are lies and never die. Truth ultimately prevails, howsoever hard anyone tries to brush it under the carpet. That is the case now with the Rafale fighter jet deal, which has turn into a full-blown scam that Government of India is trying to cover-up. But revelations coming one after the other are making it hard for the Modi government to repress the truth of the Rafale deal.

It is now public knowledge that the deal to purchase 36 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force from Dassault Aviation, has been tainted with corruption. As it happens with every dubious deal, eventually evidence starts emerging and chickens come home to roost.

First, people learnt how Anil Ambani’s 12-day-old Reliance Defence Limited, with no expertise in aeronautical manufacturing, was given the contract to manufacture the high-tech aircrafts. Long experienced state-owned company Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) was suddenly taken off the contract with the Anil Ambani group taking over as Dassault’s offset partner for the ₹58,000 crore contract. Interestingly, the junior Ambani brother was also in France when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a reworked Rafale deal, vastly different from the one envisaged by the previous UPA Government, which had HAL as Dassault’s partner for Rafale. Once these facts emerged and were reported, Ambani slapped thousands of crores of defamation suits upon news outlets and politicians raising questions, including National Herald. The game was to scare and silence—the first sign of the guilty who are afraid.

Silence will not defuse the Hollande bombshell

Before the uproar over the choice of Ambani’s company could die down, former French President Francois Hollande dropped a bombshell, telling a French news portal that the Indian government suggested the Ambani firm as the Indian offset partner to Dassault, and that neither the French Government nor Dassault had any choice in the matter. Hollande’s statement has nailed the lie that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and a host of other government ministers have been dishing out to mislead the people that the Indian Government had no role to play in selecting the Indian offset partner for the ₹58,000 crore Rafale deal.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is the latest in the line to attempt to cover up the Rafale mess that has left egg on the Modi government’s face. Even Dassault Aviation has been pushed to defend the Modi government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, however, keeping mum amidst all the noise and fury surrounding the Rafale deal. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has rightly asked the Prime Minister to clarify the doubts which have clouded the defence deal. It’s high time for the Prime Minister to speak the truth and put the issue at rest. Why isn;t the Prime Minister speaking, unless he has much to hide?

Modi’s problem is his love for mega showmanship. Right from the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign down to his public meetings on foreign soil, Modi loves to market himself at a scale no other public and private figure has dared to do till date. Such marketing requires a lot of money. After all, advertising is an exorbitantly expensive affair in these image-makeover times. The government ad budgets could fund official schemes like Swachh Bharat and Ayushman Bharat. But mesmerising electioneering needs mega funds that can come only from deals like Rafale. And, it requires Modi to rub shoulders with suit-boot wallahs, in turn making Narendra Modi government what the Congress President rightly calls a ‘suit-boot sarkar.

Mr Modi, it’s high time you get rid of the taint that has smeared your reputation in the Rafale deal. Else, history may remember you as the ‘suit-boot wala prime minster’ who worked for well heeled industrialists such as Ambani, Adani and Choksi, rather than millions of Indian poor who voted you to power with much hope, but within four years of your reign, are feeling cheated.