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As the Defence Ministry confirmed that sensitive documents on the Navy’s Scorpene submarines were leaked, the Congress termed it the “biggest defence disaster” of recent times.
The party urged the Centre to appoint a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to conduct a complete ‘security audit’ of Mumbai’s Mazagaon Dock Ship Builders Ltd.
The Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said the “scandalous leak” has a put a question mark on India's maritime security and jeopardised the sole initiative to build six Scorpene submarines of French company DCNS at a cost of $3.5 billion, being developed at present by Mazagaon.
Surjewala said despite the “Himalayan blunder”, the Narendra Modi government and its Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar are indulging in ‘operation cover up’ instead of fixing responsibility.
“To the dismay of all concerned, the Defence Minister and Indian Navy have spoken in contradictory voices. Parrikar continues to describe the leaks as ‘hacking’. The Indian Navy states that ‘source of leaks is overseas and not in India’.
The government has gone on an overdrive, describing the leaks as ‘old information’ to ‘damage not substantial’ and ‘operation capabilities not compromised’,” he added.
Citing a DCNS statement, he said the leak may have taken place in India. “With a coastline of 7,517 km to defend, with merely 13 submarines and one nuclear submarine, the government appears to live in denial,” he added.
Why clean chits?Surjewala said it is intriguing how ‘clean chits’ are being meted out without conducting a proper enquiry. “For such an enquiry to be fair, it has to be headed by an independent neutral authority of the level of a sitting Supreme Court Judge with officials of the Armed Forces, Naval and Military Intelligence, IB or other specialised agencies as its members,” he said.
He urged Modi and Parrikar to take the nation into confidence on how they propose to deal with protecting the maritime security, as also ensuring that ‘Project 75’ for building of six Scorpene submarines is not negated in toto.
“The Prime Minister and Defence Minister must also tell the nation what action being proposed vis-à-vis DCNS, which appears to blame the Indian establishment for the leaks,” he said.
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