Dismissing a news report of price escalation in the Rafale deal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said it was based on "fudged arithmetic".
The new Article on Rafale is based on fudged arithmetic - ignore the escalation of the 2007 non-deal offer and compare it with the 2016 price and invent a scam.
— Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) January 18, 2019
In a series of posts on Facebook and Twitter, Jaitley said the Supreme Court had examined the prices of the Rafale deal and the CAG is examining the same.
"The new article on Rafale is based on fudged arithmetic—ignore the escalation of the 2007 non-deal offer and compare it with the 2016 price and invent a scam," Jaitley said. "The fudged arithmetic of a compulsive contrarian can hardly be objective... Fudged arithmetics does not add to the credibility of its creator," Jaitley said.
Jaitley's comments came after a report in The Hindu claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to buy 36 aircraft instead of the 126 asked for by the Indian Air Force pushed the price of each jet up by 41.42 per cent.
Jaitley said the 2007 escalation offer was much larger than 2016 agreed escalation for the Rafale jet deal. "The price differential would widen with each subsequent supply," he added.
