Rafale deal not done yet, negotiating to reduce price: Parrikar

The deal for purchase of 36 Rafale fighter planes from France is not done yet, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Friday with an assertion that the government was negotiating to reduce to deal value and "save a lot" of money.

He accused the Congress of spreading rumours that the Rafale deal was being signed for $9 billion.

"We will reduce the deal value and we will save a lot. We will show them that we curved out a better deal that what the United Progressive Allaince government was getting that time," Parrikar said in the Lok Sabha during Calling Attention Motion on the controversial AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal.

He said that the Congress had spread the word that the Rafale deal was signed for $9 billion, which got widely reported. "In such a situation, even other people also get carried with such false information," Parrikar said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had last month tweeted a graphic, saying that the Rafale combat aircraft deal has been "finalised" and the Narendra Modi government had saved over Rs 21,000 crore in the "re-negotiation" with the French government.

The defence minister had later clarified that it is not complete as yet but at an "advanced stage" and the intention is to "close it quite soon".

India has been bargaining hard with France over the pricing of the 36 fighter planes, a deal that was announced first during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Paris in April last year.

Parrikar was responding to Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia who said that the previous UPA government was doing the Rafale deal for $10 billion.

"Jyotiraditya Scindia took total liberties with the truth by saying that they were doing Rafale deal worth $10 billion. First Rafale deal did not happen, their defence minister had written it.. he was scared that his image would be tarnished...," Parikkar said.

Arguing that AK Antony had left it to others to finalise the deal, he said, "He (Antony) had written that L-1 determination is done and now negotiate price. After finalising it, bring it back to me to check up if the company is L-1. I have never in my lifetime seen such a comment".

"They would have had the experience from Agusta deal and that is why they had wrote it on top of Rafale deal (file)," he said.

However, the Congress raised questions over buying of Rafale fighter aircraft by the Modi dispensation.

"Which defence procurement procedure permits a prime minister to go and buy fighter aircraft from a private company without tendering process on off-the-shelf basis leading to expenditure of Billion Dollars?", party's chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala asked while talking to reporters.

Raising a number of questions over the deal, he wondered whether is it sovereign right of the prime minister over exchequer's money?

"If there is no sovereign right that a prime minister has, can a prime minister tomorrow decide that he will spend 'x' amount of billion dollars of exchequer's money on off-the-shelf basis purchase of the fighter aircraft, the answer is clearly 'no'.", he said.

So, the defence procurement procedure post independence, if ever has been negated, "thrown in the dust-bin and violated with impunity," it is in case of purchase of off-the-shelf Rafale  aircraft by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, he claimed. Besides, he recalled that a global tender was held by the government and two companies had qualified -- Dassault Aviation of France which manufactures Rafale  and the other company which makes Euro Fighter.

In such a scenario, "if you had to make off-the-shelf purchase, should an equivalent offer had not been made to both the companies, so that we could have got the best price possible," he said.