Like it or loathe it, P. Chidambaram is a formidable lawyer, who has even represented his alter ego in the BJP, Arun Jaitley.

With the Congress smelling blood in the #Rafale aircraft deal, he is part of the heavy artillery the party has rolled out.

In an interview with India Today‘s Rahul Kanwal, in the light of the revelation by former French president Francois Hollande that the Narendra Modi government pushed for Anil Ambani‘s newly incorporated company Reliance Defence over state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Chidambaram asks some basic but excellent questions:

‪1) Did NDA government suggest HAL’s name as offset partner? ‬

‪2) Did the Rafale deal go to the Defence Procurement Council?‬

‪3) Did it come before the Cabinet Committee on Security or was it brought in after the deal had been inked?‬

‪4) If #Rafale deal signed by @narendramodi is 9% cheaper, why is India buying only 36 aircraft not 126. “If you do a back of the envelope calculation, for every 11 aircraft at the reduced price you will get one aircraft free.”

‪5) Why did @nsitharaman deny any knowledge of choice of #Reliance as offset partner when the French defence minister who met her was taking part in laying the foundation stone for the Reliance plant in Nagpur?