Odisha: BJD breaks silence on Rafale deal

New Delhi/Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) broke its silence on the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal with France and demanded a white paper on the agreement that was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to France in 2015.

“Questions of probity and questions of procedure do exist. Questions arise on pricing. It is well known that Qatar has bought the same planes at much cheaper price,” BJD MP Kailash Narayan Singh Deo told in the Lok Sabha today.

He added that with these doubts lingering about the deal, the Parliamentarians could not be expected to be “mute spectators”

“Under the UPA, technology was to be transferred. The government should come with a white paper on why technology transfer was not done.”

He added that if “murky defence deals” inked by the Congress scarred it, such deals were bound to scar the NDA in future.

Without directly demanding for a JPC inquiry like Congress, the BJD MP said, “There needs to be a closer look at the deal. People of India should know what went behind the decision.”

Earlier in the day, the government rejected in the Lok Sabha the opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal, saying there was no corruption, and accused the Congress, “which has a legacy of scams” like Bofors and AugustaWestland, of inventing allegations against a “clean” government.