Rafale Deal: BJP produces e-mails, photos as evidence to prove link between Robert Vadra and Sanjay Bhandari

A day after Republic TV's exclusive newsbreak about Robert Vadra's friend Sanjay Bhandari's attempt to tie up a deal with Dassault Aviations for Rafale deal, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) held a fiery press conference, wherein they brought forward a number of evidences against the two individuals, including the links between the two.

In the first allegation, BJP produced an e-mail and photo evidence to indicate a direct link between Vadra and Bhandari. Sambit Patra, spokesperson of BJP said, "A mail-trail between Sanjay Bhandari, Robert Vadra and his assistance Manoj Arora has been recovered in the raids. One of the mails reveals that one Sumit Chadha, a relative of Sanjay Bhandari, bought an estate worth Rs 19 crore for Robert Vadra in London.

"The address of the mansion is 12 Ellerton house, Branton square, which was bought in October 2009. And, Bhandari has accepted the exchange of this mail-trail with Robert Vadra. Email, dating back to October 4, 2010, wherein Vadra and Chadha speaks about 35 thousand pound for the refurbishing of the mansion bought for Vadra."

It was then followed by two more e-mails, which were flight tickets of Robert Vadra, sent to him by Bhandari. "Sanjay Bhandari, who had a travel agency -Bhandari Travel Agent International Travel Home, sent emails to Vadra. The email had tickets in them. He sent two tickets to him in a month. Per ticket was worth Rs 8 lakh.

"First mail was sent on August 7, 2012 and Vadra flew on August 13, 2012. And, second mail was sent on August 17, 2012, which had ticket of a Swiss flight to Zurich. When the deal was happening in India, money was getting transferred, Vadra was going to Zurich. Rahul Gandhi will have to answer what was Robert Vadra doing in Zurich with a bag of cash," said Batra while speaking about the proof.

Further, the BJP also accused Congress of taking away Pilatus aircraft deal from HAL and giving it to Pilatus, which in turn allowed the Gandhi family to get a commission. On this very matter, Batra said, "There is a CBI case against Bhandari for Pilatus aircraft deal, which was signed in 2012 under the UPA regime. 12 benchmarks of Pilatus deal were changed between March and October 2009. Pilatus is a swiss company.  HAL wanted this contract, but the then UPA government awarded it to Pilatus. HAL’s HTP 40 was the main contender for the Basic Trainer Aircraft (BTA).

READ: SHOCKING: 'Robert Vadra’s Friend Sanjay Bhandari Stole Rafale Papers,' Claims BJP

"Uptil 2009. HAL was indigenously developing 181 BTAs for the IAF. But, the contract was awarded to Gandhi family so that it can get commission through the deal.  And, the amount Sanjay Bhandari got for the contract was 1 million Swiss Franc. Rahul Gandhi needs to furnish an answer on this. On August 25, 2010, 2 lakh, 50 thousand CHF and on October 6, 2010, 7 lakh, 50 thousand CHF were deposited in the bank account of Sanjay Bhandari and through him to Robert Vadra."