Bribe was given for Rafale deal in UPA government

New Delhi: The French magazine ‘Mediapart’ has made a new claim of bribery regarding the Rafale deal with India. The magazine has claimed that French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation secretly paid around 7.5 million euros to a middleman to help secure the deal from India and allegedly to enable Dassault to pay the bribe. Fake bills were used.

According to a MediaPart investigation, Dassault Aviation paid bribes to middlemen in Mauritius between 2007 and 2012. A French judge has been appointed to lead a ‘highly sensitive’ judicial probe into suspected corruption and favoritism in the Rs 59,000-crore inter-governmental deal with India for the supply of 36 Rafale fighter jets, the magazine had reported. . There has been no response from the Ministry of Defense or Dassault Aviation on this latest report yet.

The magazine said in its new report on Sunday, “Mediapart is today publishing an alleged bogus bill that seeks to reduce a middleman to help finalize the sale of 36 Rafale fighter jets by French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation to India.” Secret commissions of less than 75 lakh euros were paid.

‘This includes offshore companies, dubious agreements and ‘fake’ bills. Mediapart may disclose that India’s CBI and ED officials had evidence since October 2018 that French airline Dassault had paid middleman Sushen Gupta at least 7.5 million euros (approximately Rs 65 crore) in a secret commission. The report said it was related to the French company’s long and successful effort to secure a 7.8 billion euro deal in 2016 to sell 36 of its Rafale fighter jets to India.

Following this claim, BJP’s IT department in-charge Amit Malviya hit out at the Congress, alleging that bribes were paid during the UPA regime. Malviya tweeted, ‘Dassault paid 14.6 million euros during 2004-2013 to middleman Sushen Gupta for selling Rafale. UPA was taking bribe but could not finalize the deal. The NDA later canceled it and entered into an agreement with the French government, which upset Rahul Gandhi. The NDA government had signed a deal to buy 36 Rafale jets for the Indian Air Force on September 23, 2016.