All fingers pointed at Modi in Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi say

NEW DELHI, Jan 2, 2019, The Times of India. A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed in his New Year’s Day interview that there were no allegations of personal corruption against him, Congress president Rahul Gandhi sought to dismantle the assertion by emphasising that it was the prime minister alone at who fingers were being pointed in the multi-crore Rafale aircraft deal, reported The Times of India.

In a sensational claim, Rahul also said Goa chief minister Manohar Parikkar ‘blackmailed’ Modi with information related to the Rafale deal and demanded to know what this information is and how it implicates Modi.

‘There might be other tapes of this nature. The entire Goa cabinet heard what Mr Parikkar said. He is threatening the PM of India because he has information on the Rafale deal. He blackmailed the PM in a Goa cabinet meeting,’ Rahul said, elaborating on the contents of the tape that Speaker Sumitra Mahajan disallowed him from playing in Lok Sabha during the Rafale debate on Wednesday.

Throwing the gauntlet at PM Modi and challenging him to a 20-minute one-on-one debate on the defence deal, Rahul also accused Modi of lacking the ‘guts’ to face questions.

In a twin attack on PM Modi first in Parliament and then at the party headquarters on Wednesday, Rahul also reiterated the demand for a joint parliamentary probe into the Rafale deal, and raised questions on the increase in price of the aircraft, the procedures ‘bypassed’ to finalise the deal, and the exclusion of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to accommodate Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence.

The Rafale debate, which has grown more acerbic with time, also saw Rahul accuse the PM and defence minister ‘hide’ in order to duck questions. ‘So, it is very clear that the Prime Minister does not have the guts to come to Parliament and confront the questions. The Defence Minister hides behind the AIADMK people, and the Prime Minister hides in his room,’ Rahul said while leading the opposition charge against the Modi government in Lok Sabha.

The House also witnessed high drama on Wednesday afternoon when Rahul sought the Speaker’s permission to play an audio tape, purportedly of Goa minister Vishwajeet Rane, on the Rafale deal. With finance minister Arun Jaitley asserting that the tape is ‘false and fabricated’, Mahajan denied permission to Rahul to play the audio or read out the transcript unless he was willing to vouch for its authenticity.

The Congress leader, however, pressed on, also rubbishing Jaitley’s claim that Supreme Court had given the NDA’s Rafale deal a ‘clean chit’. ‘PM is involved in corruption. We are asking for a JPC and see what comes out. We are confident that when a JPC is constituted, only two names will come up – Anil Ambani’s and Modi’s. The capability or quality of Rafale aircraft is not in question. The thing we are saying is that the PM changed the contract and helped Ambani steal from the Indian exchequer,’ Rahul said, making it amply clear that the Congress won’t yield despite the counter attack mounted on it by the government, who raked up the alleged corruption in matters like the Bofors deal and the National Herald issue.