BJD MP Tathagat Satpathy questions India's Rafale fighter deal

NEW DELHI: A BJD member in Lok Sabha today questioned the rationale behind India buying the Rafale fighter jets from France, claiming no other country has purchased the plane and its production facility was about to shut down when the order was placed.

Tathagat Satpathy made the statement while participating in a discussion on demands for grants for the Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation when Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was present in the House.

He said it was unfair that the Water Resources Ministry has faced a 50 per cent cut in its budget and termed the ongoing project to cleanse the ghats of river Ganga as a sham.

While attacking the government on these issues, Satpathy referred to the Rafale deal to buy 36 fighter jets during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to France.

He claimed that the facility was to close down in the next two to three months when India "landed" there to buy the planes.

The BJD MP also claimed that no one in the world was buying the French fighters, produced by Dassault Aviation, when India decided to buy 36 of them under a government-to- government deal.

Recently, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had said he would move court if government went ahead with the deal.