Centre's move to hand over Rafale jet pricing details to Supreme Court takes wind out of Congress' sails

The Narendra Modi government’s decision to submit in a sealed cover all the pricing details of the Rafale fighter jets to the Supreme Court on Monday is a preemptive move to checkmate the Congress’ strategy of making it a poll issue this election season. The Centre had previously argued before the top court that pricing was too sensitive an information to be shared with even the judges, prompting the Supreme Court to retort that it should file an affidavit giving reasons behind the secrecy.

It took the government 13 days to reverse its stand. This reversal was prompted by the realisation that reluctance to share the Rafale pricing details would be making room for the Congress to exploit the subject. By providing the details only to the Supreme Court bench hearing the case, the government is sending a signal that while the information is a matter of national security and utmost secrecy is in national interest, it simultaneously has nothing to hide because all due processes were followed and there is no scam. It has no qualms, therefore, in subjecting its decision to Supreme Court scrutiny.

“The government has nothing to hide. But the price details are too sensitive and secret as anyone getting wind of it could seriously jeopardise the country’s security concerns. That is why the price details are being given only to the judges dealing with the PILs on this issue,” a report in The Times of India quoted a government source as saying.

Prima facie, therefore, this tactical move appears aimed at blunting the Congress’ attack and denying it the chance to weaponise the secrecy around a defence purchase into a political tool. The decision also indicates that it has finally dawned on the government and the BJP that the Rafale deal is not just a matter of national security, but is a political issue and requires a political solution.

In a way, the Centre’s change in stand is also a tacit acknowledgement that it had erred in its previous strategy of not treating the Rafale deal as a political issue, hoping that the “controversy” would die down on its own, given that there are no irregularities involved. The BJP and the government may have underestimated the power of political narratives built around the stigma of scams in defence purchases. It was far too slow in getting the wind of the Congress’ game and even slower in coming out with a counter.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s loud campaign on “corruption in Rafale” is built less on facts and more on obfuscations, misleading statements and falsehoods. He has been caught changing the purported price of the Rafale jets several times in the past.

Dassault Aviation — the Frnech manufacturer of the Rafale jet — has repeatedly refuted Rahul’s allegations, most recently on Tuesday, when its CEO, Eric Trappier told news agency ANI : “I don’t lie. The truth I declared earlier and the statements I made are true. I don’t have a reputation of lying. In my position as CEO, you don’t lie.”

Trappier’s statement was in response to Rahul previously accusing him of lying.

Even the French government had to rebut the Congress president’s claim on the “secrecy clause” in the Rafale contract between India and France. Rahul had told Parliament, ostensibly quoting President of France Emmanuel Macron, that there was no “secrecy clause” involved in the deal.

Analysts, too, have punched large holes into his arguments.

Dear @RahulGandhi do you realise that this report also punctures your own figures of Cong having negotiating the Rafale for 520 Cr each. €155mn in 2014 translates to 1200 Cr each https://t.co/Az45Ws5kmJ

— Yusuf Unjhawala 🇮🇳 (@YusufDFI) November 10, 2018

Rahul’s brazenness on the Rafale deal stems from the fact that he had all along been treating it as a political issue. The liberty he has shown on facts comes from a strategy built around the stigma in India attached with defence deals. Here, the Congress president has been served well by the deals inked by his own party while in power — several of which, starting from Bofors, have been mired in controversies. Public memory of scams runs so deep that it is easier for Rahul — or so the Congress may have calculated — to convince the public that there is a “scam” in Rafale, than it is for the BJP to persuade the public that there isn’t.

The Congress’ Rafale strategy is also an effort to carpet-bomb allegations hoping that some of it sticks. At the very least, it would persuade the media to prefix each mention of the Rafale deal with “controversial”, from which “scam” is a short distance away. The Congress doesn’t really need the BJP or Modi government to get involved in a scam. All it needs is for the public to believe so.

The allegations also rely on Rahul’s status as the beneficiary of ’low expectations’. Since nobody expects Rahul to strictly adhere to facts, he can get away by saying almost anything. Through his allegations alone, and not a shred of facts, he might have actually succeeded in building a narrative around the Rafale deal.

For a while, the government tried to rebut Rahul with facts and figures. Before long, it realised that there is no point as it was losing the perception war . The move to hand over the price details to the Supreme Court is a good strategy because it gets the government the top court’s seal of approval and paints the Congress president and his campaign in even poorer light.

Whether this will discourage Rahul from ploughing on is an entirely different question.