The Congress Party's murky history of Defense Deals, Corruptions and Scams is slowly coming out. This is the shocking story that reveals many details.
- In Politics
- 06:06 AM, Jan 09, 2019
- Shwetank Bhushan
The admirable thing about the Congress is that it not only brings the nation down when in power but also actively fights for its middlemen when out of power. Now that the Rafale allegations have been buried in the ground due to Supreme Court’s and the Defense Minister’s interventions, let’s look into the reasons why Rahul Gandhi was hallucinating, morning, noon and night about Rafale is a scam.
The circumstances compel the need to revisit some details, chronologically, about India’s effort to buy Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft since beginning to know how CONGRESS Party compromised the nation and acted as a backburner to the arms dealers.
After the Kargil war, to strengthen the depleting squadrons of the Indian Air Force, the original proposal to buy MMRCA was first initiated during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government but they were voted out of power subsequently.
Year-2005:
A policy change [OFFSET POLICY] was brought in by the UPA Govt. by which it was mandatory for foreign firms bagging defense contracts in India valued at Rs. 300 crore and above to bring back 30% of the contract value into India for procuring goods or services.
A close associate of Robert Vadra, Sanjay Bhandari who was a car dealer, got into the offsets business and became a high-profile defense consultant, liaison services provider and executor of offsets obligations for foreign armament companies!
Year-2007:
The UPA government finally initiated the RFP (Request for Proposal) for 126 MMRCA fighter aircraft. Sanjay Bhandari set up his flagship company - Offset India Solutions (OIS) Group with a paid up capital of Rs. 1 lakh.
Year-2008:
Bhandari's name first surfaced in connection with the deal to purchase Trainers Aircraft for the Indian Air Force, when Swiss firm Pilatus decided to engage Bhandari’s OIS, though, unofficially. Report.
Year-2009:
Guess who joins Bhandari at Zurich? Our wheeler-dealer hero and newly minted Shiv Bhakt, Robert Vadra. Sanjay Bhandari got the tickets booked for Vadra to Zurich (Switzerland) for the Pilatus deal. Report.
At the same time, a property worth Rs 19 crore was purchased in the name of Robert Vadra in London in 2009, which, reports claim, were funded by Sanjay Bhandari. Report.
Year-2010:
Bhandari gets deals thrown at him like confetti. Even before the trials for Basic Trainer Aircrafts (BTA) in Sept-Oct 2010, Bhandari received one million Swiss francs from Pilatus. Report.
The UPA Government signed a contract to purchase 12 AgustaWestland AW101 helicopters to carry the VVIPs. Sonia Gandhi was the driving force of this contract through the family middleman, Christian Michel. Report.
Year-2011:
IAF in the meanwhile conducted technical evaluations and flight evaluations and in 2011, declared that Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon had met its criteria. The Vadra-Bhandari duo was eying this whale of a deal.
On the other hand, in 2011, IAF, in a great hurry to buy new basic trainers chose Pilatus PC-7 in a questionable selection process. The Korea Aerospace Industries had strongly protested the deal claiming Pilatus had submitted an incomplete bid demanding its disqualification.
South Korea’s Defense minister personally contacted A.K. Antony, his Indian counterpart, requesting a “high-level review.” The Pilatus deal was put on hold. Report.
Year-2012:
The Bhandari-Vadra duo pressurized the UPA govt. Powered through top political establishment, the objections of Korean Aerospace were overruled, the deal was cleared by the CCS in May 2012 and Pilatus was awarded the Rs 4,000 crore ($1Bn) BTA contract.
The same year, Rafale was declared L-1 and contract negotiations began with Dassault Aviation. The proposed deal on the table was to buy 18 aircraft in flyaway condition from France and 108 to be made locally by HAL.
Dassault starts signing offset agreements including RIL. RIL had formed a new company Reliance Aerospace Technologies Ltd for this purpose. The MOU was inked after Rafale emerged as the L-1. This was hurting the ambitious Vadra-Bhandari duo. Report.
Year-2013:
Bhandari's company, OIS approached Dassault for a possible tie-up. French government received 'STRONG' recommendations to consider OIS's bid in Rafael deal. This report states that “There was considerable pressure to tie up for a partnership.” Report.
But Bhandari was under investigation for charges of wrongly influencing defense deals. When Dassault came to know this, they decided against partnering with his firm. UPA Government totally withdrew from the negotiations. All these charges are under investigation by the ED & CBI.
The FAMILY DECIDED TO BLOCK THE RAFALE DEAL and middleman Christian Michel was fielded to negotiate with Eurofighter. Report.
Unfortunately for the family, On 25 March 2013, India's Defence Minister A. K. Antony confirmed corruption allegations in the AgustaWestland Deal by stating: "Yes, corruption has taken place in the helicopter deal and bribes have been taken. The CBI is pursuing the case very vigorously." Report.
Look at the brazenness. While a CBI investigation was on in the AgustaWestland deal, an attempt was also made to kill the HAL's program to develop 106 trainer aircraft in favor of additional Pilatus trainers through ACM NAK Browne.
The FAMILY still believed, Modi could be stopped.
Year-2014:
Bhandari’s shadow world would have remained hidden. But Mr. Modi's rule came, his company was probed by the IT, CBI, and ED and found that he was a kingpin of scandals, he was also importing cars by avoiding customs duty. Bhandari's business dealings were red-flagged.
Year-2015:
Def Min Parrikar himself found the Pilatus-Deal fishy and asked for an investigation. The case was taken up by CBI, a link to Bhandari was found and then later, his firm was barred from doing any business with MoD.
In a parallel development, the Indian Express reported this FRAUD: “components, part of an IAF proposal to pay Pilatus under the maintenance head were not calculated during the RFP stage before declaring it the lowest bidder.” Report.
Year-2016:
The Modi Government had ordered a probe into the Pilatus deal and CBI had begun an investigation. Report.
Bhandari's offices were raided by IT Dept. During the raids, confidential/secret defense ministry documents were found in his possession and he was booked under the Official Secrets Act by Delhi Police. But before he could be questioned further, he managed to escape to London.
In the documents recovered during these raids, agencies had also found email exchanges between Bhandari and Robert Vadra. Emails and phone calls scrutinized by investigators also reveal that Bhandari was in regular contact with bureaucrats and politicians.
Year-2017:
On further investigation by ED, Robert Vadra's aide Bhandari was also booked under PMLA, and ED had seized assets worth 26.61 crores. Report.
Year-2018:
The Eurofighter is the real motive for Rahul's Rafale song and dance! Congress spokesperson openly started asking Government, why did they not reconsider Eurofighter Typhoon?
Is it also not correct that on 4th July, 2014; Eurofighter Typhoon wrote a letter to the then Defence Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley offering to reduce prices by 20%?
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) February 6, 2018
December 5, 2018: AgustaWestland deal ‘middleman’ Christian Michel extradited to India, lands in Delhi. Report.
This makes the family jittery. The man-boy Rahul started all-out attack calling everybody a thief. Whoever understands the background, knows, Rahul and his mom are nervously shivering on this development.
The fact remains, that after a decade of filtration, technical evaluation, tender process, when Rafale was found to be the lowest bidder, Congress Government stopped it for reconsideration only because the Commission was not paid. Now we know that it was all about having a deal within a deal.
The more Christian Michel sings, the more will we see Rahul going bonkers. Just wait.
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