Scorpene sub leak ‘scandalous’: Congress

Party seeks complete security audit of defence ministry.

Terming as “scandalous” the Scorpene submarine project leak, the Congress on Wednesday demanded a complete security audit of the defence ministry by a sitting Supreme Court judge even as it accused defence minister Manohar Parrikar of launching an “operation cover-up”.

The audit could be in the form of a commission of in-quiry and should fix resp-onsibility of the political executive, including that of the defence minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party’s chief spokes-person Randeep Surjewala told reporters here.

Insisting that the inquiry should probe the defence minister and the defence ministry to see whether they had abdicated their responsibility, he said the leak has put a question mark on India’s maritime security. Dubbing it as the “biggest defence disaster” of recent time, he said it has jeopardised the sole initiative to build six Scorpene submarines in collaboration with French company DCNS at a cost of $3.5 billion by government-owned Mazagaon Dock Ship Builders Ltd. at Mumbai.

“Despite the ‘Himalayan blunder’ that has deeply hurt India’s defence preparedness, the Modi government/ defence minister are indulging in ‘operation cover-up’ instead of fixing responsibility,” he alleged.

Mr Surjewala claimed that all concerned, including the defence minister and Indian Navy, are speaking in contradictory voices.

While Mr Parrikar continues to describe the leaks as “hacking”, the Navy states that the “source of leaks is overseas and not in India”, he said.

French Company DCNS has clearly hinted that leak may have taken place in India, he said.

With a coastline of 7,517 km to defend with merely 13 submarines and one nuclear submarine, the government appears to be living in denial, he said.

“It is in fact intriguing as to how ‘clean chits’ are being meted out without co-nducting a proper inquiry. For such an inquiry to be fair, it has to be headed by an independent neutral authority of the level of a sitting Supreme Court judge with officials from the armed forces, naval and military intelligence, IB or other specialised agencies as its members,” he said.

He contended that this is an “alarming” situation th-at requires a complete “sec-urity audit” of Mazagaon Dock Ship Builders Ltd. as also of the defence ministry.