The controversy apparently is now self sustaining, for a series of news paper articles have emerged from The Hindu as a mainstream newspaper, besides articles by The Wire and other web based media. Col Ajai Shukla (Retd) was along with Mr Rahul Gandhi, the lone rangers of Rafale Deal, and many imputed that he was perhaps lobbying for Americans or Russians, while it may just be that he is being brutally honest with his opinion on this deal.
In two days, The Hindu first posts a noting of the Ministry of Defence that shows how officers of the Ministry express concerns over the PMO interfering with the negotiations, and suggesting that if the Indian Negotiating Team(INT) from their ministry was not deemed capable the PMO may sponsor a leader at suitable rank to head the negotiations with the French. Negotiations, to be fair, on the French side, were between Dassault Aviation and were being monitored by their Presidential office.
So if The Hindu screamed of PMO involvement and concerns about their meddling presence by Defence Ministry officials, ANI, a news agency seen close to the Modi Government, led with a full view of the same Noting, where at the bottom the remarks of the Raksha Mantri are endorsed. Actually why Mr Rahul called the Presser where he claimed that this was proof that PMO was involved in an intimate manner and how this led the whole Rafale Deal to the door of the PM is because, for his lone campaign of a scam, this was finally from outside and inside of the Government evidence of apprehensions over the deal announced by PM Modi and President Hollande in their 2015 Summit. For the present Defence Minister, the position is fixed, to gamely stand the well worn ground that all that was there to be revealed on this deal had been done other than flogging a dead horse, while the present IAF Chief dubs the Rafale deal as Emergency Purchase!
Nut shell- the former Defence Minister has covered his tracks well, there are forces who are sympathetic to him, who first left out his portion on the noting not wishing to involve him, while the government sources used his remarks to defend their position, their cause weakened by two clear ‘poisons’ that Mr Parikkar left on the Noting in the best traditions of Lutyens Bureaucratic Bible. Firstly Mr Parikkar dated the noting for 11 January 2016 for remarks addressed to him by his Defence Secretary of 01 December 2015. Such delayed dating is code for indicating both distance and substance of his own locus on the vexed subject of the Noting. In those 40 odd days, if he so wished the Noting itself could have been written in any other manner he sought at every level, which is how the Bible would advise, unless, it was exactly what he wanted in the first place. Secondly, the direction to his Secretary was to ‘resolve issues/matters in consultation with Principal Secretary to the PM’, which is bureaucratese for instructing his Ministry to not involve him any further in this matter, and leaving his Secretary the option of approaching the highest official of his cadre inside the PMO to create necessary cover of ‘orders’ for what ever they were proceeding with on the deal. This Noting is evidence of that smoking gun- The Parikkar Papers!
Normally any inter ministerial issue would do the round of the Cabinet Secretary, but in this case, since the PMO was involved, the CabSec System was bypassed and instructions were taken from the Principal Secretary to the PM. So from the SC order on Rafale, a non existent CAG report was busted through RTI query, and now through this Noting, the submission of the Attorney General that only INT was involved has been proved wrong. Why SC is yet to hear the matter to revise its order, we can only second guess, other than this that while silence of the Judiciary allows the Government the breather to keep repeating that this deal has been subjected to judicial review, is Judiciary awaiting more leaks before they review? Rumours are rife that more leaks will happen which will further compromise the Government position on this deal. The game being played is a face-off that will end up reopening the can of worms that norms are for fools, arbitrariness in procedure, extraneous considerations in process continue to plague the Defence Procurement Procedurehttps://www.livemint.com/Opinion/uREPebhxkYUMMOA8p25EWN/Opinion–A-flawed-defence-procurement-policy.html! It is an irony that in a country with no public appetite for strategic matters, where repeatedly history has shown decisions replete with adhocism and short sightedness, where a maestro like K Subramanyam moaned the lack of a strategic culture, allegations of corruption in defence deals swings the vote!
indiarubberman.com 