Its a big if. What happened in Paris was nothing more than a MoU not deal. The actual deal had gone through all the required process and negotiations.
True, that's why I said we need confirmation on that, from French or Indian officials, that were present during the talks. Modi surely didn't talked to Hollande alone right?
But the fact at this point is, that such an allegation from the highest French official is very credible, while there was no response from the PM and even the press releases that followed, didn't stated that Hollande was wrong!
Being an MoU has nothing to do with the cronyism allegation, but it's just a convinient term the government used. MoUs are not as detailed as the Rafale deal announcement, nor are such deals usually done during foreign visits (as NDA officials confirmed ahead of the visit). What happened after that, was the contract negotiation part and not fixing the deal anymore and that then might had been done by the book, since MoD was involved the. The question however were about the procedures "ahead" of the announcement and the government always tried to avoid answering that. Let's see if SC or CAG can find out why?
And how can this govt insist on a partner when DPP-2016 says it's up to the company?
Because there was no tender, where Dassault and Co, needed to reply to an RFP, that was bound to DPP rules [not that Dassault cares much about DPP rules anyway].
This was a single vendor deal, as a result of G2G talks, so the PM could have proposed to buy 36 fighters off the shelf, with Reliance as the main offset partner, being a requirement and the French government then informs Dassault about it. Dassault only later needs to say, they have chosen Reliance that's all, when the contract negotiations were on.
The same would aply if the PM had insisted on Adani and Dassault then would have moved with them.
You can't refer to the DPP when the whole deal was done bypassing the DPP in the first place!
No tender, no DAC or CCS approvals, no option clause, no involvement of the DM at all, not even IAF is ready to confirm, that they were involved in the planing of that deal, or requested it. So where was the DPP used before the announcement?
Also add the fact, that Hollande and Trappier now confirmed, that they were surprised with the deal and that they had no informations about it, Dassault was not even part of that he talks.
This also confirms, that there was no grand plan behind it, the MMRCA was in a deadlock the to Dassault and the Rafale deal was the unilateral decision of the PM, to get out of it and act decisive at least for a few months.
If they had done it by the book, they had cancelled MMRCA first and then searched for an alternative, with MoD and IAF included, but that's not what happened and why it's so difficult for the government to defend the deal.
Btw, can you move these discussions on the deal to the Rafale thread and keep this thread on MMRCA topic?
