Responding to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s blog where he called the Congress party’s campaign on the Rafale deal complete falsehood, party president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday thanked Mr. Jaitley for “bringing back the nation’s attention to the Rafale robbery” and demanded a joint parliamentary committee to probe the deal.
“Mr. Jaitley, thanks for bringing the nation’s attention back to the Great Rafale Robbery! How about a Joint Parliamentary Committee to sort it out? Problem is, your Supreme Leader is protecting his friend. So this may be inconvenient. Do check and revert in 24 hours. We’re waiting!” Mr. Gandhi tweeted after Mr. Jaitley wrote a long blog to rubbish the Congress party’s allegations.
Terming the Congress accusations a falsehood, he had asked Mr. Gandhi and his party to “respond immediately” to the 15 questions that were raised by him in his blog.
More questions
The Congress replied by raising its own set of questions. Quoting from the joint press statement of the Prime Minister and the President of France, which was issued on the day the deal was signed, Congress leader Manish Tewari said paragraph 14 of the joint statement said “the aircraft and associated systems and weapons would be delivered on the same configuration as had been tested and approved by the Indian Air Force with a longer maintenance responsibility by France.’’
“Was there any re-evaluation conducted by the Air Force? Were the specifications changed by the Air Force?” asked the Congress leader.
