The Supreme Court rejected petitions on December 14 seeking a probe into a fighter jet deal worth about $8.7 billion with France’s Dassault Aviation, handing a political victory to the BJP months before a general election.

The ruling is a setback for the Congress, which had accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of corruption in the deal to buy 36 Rafale planes and a decision to pick Reliance Defence as a domestic partner.

Reliance, owned by billionaire Anil Ambani, has no aeronautical expertise and was chosen ahead of state-run Hindustan Aeronautics. Dassault said in October it picked Reliance on its own, countering a French online media report that said the Indian government insisted on the firm as a condition of the contract.

The petitioners, two former BJP ministers and an activist lawyer, had argued that the escalating price of the deal should be probed.

“We don’t find any material to show that it’s commercial favouritism,” Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said while delivering the ruling. “It’s not proper for the court to examine each aspect of this case. It isn’t a job of the court to compare pricing details.”

The Congress used the issue to put pressure on Modi in recent Assembly polls, in which the BJP lost power in three heartland states.

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma told the media the party did not agree with the court ruling and demanded a parliamentary probe into what he called an “arbitrary deal”.

Several BJP ministers and leaders took to Twitter to attack the Congress, accusing it of politicising a deal the government says is critical for India’s defence. They demanded an apology from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.