Responding to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Facebook post on the Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday asked Mr. Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “stop lying” and institute a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to investigate the Rafale fighter jet deal.
The Congress accused Mr. Modi of “violating the oath of secrecy” by leaking information to industrialist Anil Ambani.
Playing on the words “jet” and “lie”, Mr. Gandhi took to Twitter to target the Finance Minister.
“Jetlie’s speciality is his ability to spin “2 truths”, or lies, with fake self-righteousness and indignation to defend the indefensible. It’s high time he, the RM [Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman] and our Prime Minister stop lying and call a JPC [joint parliamentary committee] to establish the full, uncorrupted truth about the Rafale scam,” Mr. Gandhi said on Twitter.
In his blog, Mr. Jaitley had suggested a link between former French President Francois Hollande’s statement on Friday and an earlier tweet of the Congress chief.
‘No coincidence’
Mr. Jaitley said it was “no coincidence” that Mr. Hollande’s statement came days after Mr. Gandhi’s August 30 tweet that said, “This Rafale aircraft really does fly far and fast! It’s also going to drop some big bunker buster bombs in the next couple of weeks.”
“The former French President’s first statement rhymes with Rahul Gandhi’s prediction,” Mr. Jaitley said.
The Congress responded by directly accusing the Prime Minister of violating the oath of office by passing on confidential information to Mr. Ambani about the purchase of 36 fighter jets from France.
“My direct charge is that the Prime Minister violated the oath of confidentiality. Only he could have told Anil Ambani that HAL [Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.] will be out and he will strike a deal to buy 36 jets and you [Mr. Ambani] go and talk to Dassault Aviation [the makers of Rafale jet],” senior leader Anand Sharma said at a press conference.
Prime Minister Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafale fighters after holding talks with Mr. Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris.
Mr. Hollande’s remarks in an interview last week suggesting that the Government of India had pushed for the Anil Ambani group to be a partner of Dassault Aviation has added fresh fire to the controversy.
‘PM must respond’
Mr. Sharma, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said Mr. Modi needs to respond to the charges made against him instead of fielding his Ministers.
“We don’t want to hear from the Defence Minister, or Finance Minister. The one who is supposed to speak is on maun vrat . The Prime Minister has to respond to these questions,” he said.
Calling it the “scam of the century”, the Congress leader also asserted that once the Modi government went out of power, commissions of inquiry would be formed and criminal cases registered in the Rafale deal.
Published - September 23, 2018 07:24 pm IST
