Chowkidar not bothered about Rafale but hiding crucial data: Mayawati

BJP leaders may adopt whatever fashion they want, but they should work as the ‘watchman’ of the law, says Mayawati

Current Affairs: BSP supremo Mayawati Friday attacked the BJP using the ‘chowkidar’ jibe alleging while its leaders did not care about the Rafale files, they are shielding crucial data on unemployment and farmers’ plight.

In a series of tweets, she took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his colleagues for calling themselves ‘chowkidar’ (watchman) and alleged they are not bothered about Rafale files being “stolen”, but are hiding data on “declining” employment rate, poverty and farmers’ plight.

Prime Minister Modi and his partymen have launched “Main bhi chowkidar (I too am a watchman) campaign to blunt Opposition’s, especially the Congress’, ‘chowkidar chor hai (watchman is thief’ slogan. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister further said while several BJP leaders and ministers declared themselves ‘chowkidars’ following the PM, CM Yogi Adityanath was not sure whether to announce himself as one or remain a public servant or a yogi (sannyasi). “BJP leaders may adopt whatever fashion they want”, but they should work as the ‘watchman’ of the law and Constitution, she said.

Rafale twist: Why did France refuse to give India a sovereign guarantee?

Documents reveal how two core conditions of a government-to-government contract were diluted in the run-up to purchasing 36 Rafale jets

Latest News – The Narendra Modi government has consistently claimed that the Rafale aircraft deal was between two governments – India and France – and therefore there was hardly any possibility of India’s interests being compromised in any way.

However, government documents accessed by The Wire reveal the Ministry of Law and Justice had opined that the “core elements of Government-to-Government (G-to-G) character” of the Rafale deal were not acceptable to France and consequently had to be diluted and waived in the final inter-governmental agreement (IGA) signed between the two governments in September 2016.|Rafale Deal 

So what were the two core G-to-G elements that France did not accept? The law ministry gave a clear view to the Ministry of Defence that in G-to-G contracts, “the responsibility for the supply of equipment and related industrial services and performance of the entire contract remains with the foreign government”. The second condition cited by the law ministry was that “the dispute resolution mechanism remained at Government-to-Government level only”. However, in the course of negotiating the IGA, certain sensitive issues arose whereby the French government sought to transfer its own direct responsibilities and obligations to the industrial supplier – in this case Dassault Aviation.

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