Commercial & classified info different: Congress on Rafale deal

NEW DELHI: A day after Rahul Gandhi claimed in Parliament there was no secrecy pact in Rafale deal and subsequent clarification from the French government, Congress stood its ground on Saturday drawing a distinction between ‘classified’ and ‘commercial’ information and said pricing of the aircraft was not covered under the confidentiality clause.
During the debate on no-confidence motion, the Congress president cited a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron to claim there was no secrecy clause in the Rafale deal.Rahul alleged defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman had lied about the secrecy clause.
Soon after, the French government said it had concluded a security agreement in 2008 with India to protect information provided by the partner that can impact security and operational capacities of defence equipment. “These provisions naturally apply to the IGA concluded on September 23, 2016, on acquisition of 36 Rafale aircraft and their weapons,” it said.
However, Congress maintained Macron had clearly said during the meeting with Rahul there was “no condition” related to disclosure of price of the aircraft. Congress leader Anand Sharma said, “During the meeting with French president, where I and Manmohan Singhji were present, on specific query from Rahul Gandhiji if there is any objection on the part of the French to disclose the price of the aircraft, the French president said there is no condition on their part.”
Sharma also sought to differentiate between “classified” and “commercial” information about the planes and said while Rahul did not ask Macron for “classified information”, the pricing of the aircraft did not come under the purview of classified information that could not be revealed.
Congress had said that while the UPA government had negotiated a price of Rs 527 crore per fighter in a 2008 deal, the Modi government had entered into an agreement in 2016 to buy the same aircraft at a considerably inflated Rs 1,570 crore apiece.