The Gagan Shakti exercise went well though. More than 80% availability across the entire fleet. And obviously bound to improve over the next 5 years when the Migs leave service and the Russians set up production centres for the MKI's spares. So the loose ends are being tied up.
Back in 2017, India and Russia reached an agreement which allowed HAL to directly import spares from the manufacturers instead of going to RBE. This has allowed HAL to negotiate for long term agreements to create a spares hub. This is happening for the first time in Soviet-Russia history. Earlier, you could buy only a year's worth of spares and there was a waiting period of 1 year to get through RBE's bureaucracy, which was the primary cause of low availability of Russian aircraft worldwide. So you can expect the availability of Russian aircraft in IAF's inventory to improve significantly.
It's just pre-election noise, I wouldn't pay much mind to it. Even the Congress knows nothing's wrong with the deal. The CAG report that will be released will clear a lot of things, and the Supreme Court has already thrown out all the frivolous PILs.
Even if RaGa comes to power, he will likely order 36 more Rafales without the need for customisation and basing requirement, which will reduce the cost by $2B+. The govt's bought infrastructure for 80+ Rafales and customisation is a one-time payment, so there's no need to repeat the same. He is free to sell that as a victory to the public.
It's because we didn't want someone else to subsidise Pakistani military's modernisation.
India's argument was to allow Pakistan to buy the F-16s using their own funds, while spending the CSF and military aid money on stuff that's actually required to fight the TTP rather than propping up Pakistan's ability to fight India. Pretty fair.
For example, India wouldn't have complained if the money was used to buy weaponised LIFTs for Pakistan to fight the TTP instead of the F-16s.