Congress shows Antony replies, questions Rafale price ‘secrecy’

The Congress has countered the NDA government’s contention that financial details of the Rafale aircraft deal cannot be disclosed on grounds of national security by releasing copies of answers former defence minister AK Antony gave to questions in Parliament detailing financial costs of various defence deals. Finance minister Arun Jaitley had said that financial details of defence deals were not disclosed by even earlier governments due to security considerations.

Congress MPs staged a noisy protest on Friday over the issue, amid an adjournment of the Lok Sabha. Party president Rahul Gandhi later in a tweet asked Jaitley to reveal at least now the price of each Rafale jet.

Congress released copies of three specific written answers Antony had given in Parliament in response to questions asked by some MPs on the financial costs of some mega defence deals. In a March 11, 2010, reply to then MP Manish Tewari’s question on financial implications of the purchase of the aircraft carrier Gorshkov from Russia in January 2004, Antony replied “the contract and supplementary agreements comprising repair and re-equipping, logistics support, training etc were concluded with Russia for the acquisition of aircraft carried ex-Admiral Gorshkov, in January 2004 at the cost of $974 million.” Antony also informed the MP that after revised negotiations on repair and re-equipping contract “the revised contract of $2,330 million was approved by the government.”

In a written answer to Asaduddin Owaisi’s question on the purchase of the 42 Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft from Russia, Antony on August 9, 2010 replied, “the estimated cost of the project is `2017.40 crore and the aircraft are planned to be delivered during 2014-18.”

On parliamentarian Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo’s question on initial acquisition cost at which the Mirage upgradation programme was signed, Antony replied on March 4, 2013, “the last contracted cost for each Mirage-2000 aircraft in 2000 was `133 crore. The contract for upgradation was signed in 2011, wherein the cost of upgrading one aircraft was `167 crore. Applying an escalation of 3.5% per annum to the contracted cost for the year 2000, as pricing policy review committee, it works out to be `195 crore at 2011 level.”

After releasing the copy of Antony’s answers to Parliament, AICC chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala hailed it as examples of ‘transparent and efficient negotiations’ the UPA regime had carried out. Soon Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “Dear Mr Jaitlie, you said the UPA never released prices of Defence purchases? To nail your lie, here are 3 parliamentary replies by the UPA with full transparency on pricing. Now do ask our Raksha Mantri to tell India how much each Rafale jet cost,” with hashtag "DealMeinKuchKalaHai".