BJP spokespersons have also been told not to give credence to Rahul Gandhi by reacting to his charges, and instead ridicule him.
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has instructed its national spokespersons and media panellists to refrain from reacting to the opposition’s allegations on the Rafale deal.
There is a belief in the ruling party that the constant whataboutery on the defence deal could create doubts in people’s minds even if there is no corruption involved.
The Congress has turned up the heat on the NDA government, ahead of elections in five states, accusing it of buying the French Rafale fighter jets at a much-inflated price — about three times that being negotiated by the previous UPA regime — and of favouring industrialist Anil Ambani by getting an offset contract worth Rs 30,000 crore to his company that was formed just days before the defence deal was entered into.
The government has been rebutting the allegations but that hasn’t deterred the opposition party from making an issue out of it to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
BJP leaders said that at the party national media workshop held in New Delhi Sunday, the Rafale deal was discussed at length. They said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who earlier held the defence portfolio, addressed the spokespersons and provided them with details of the defence deal that could be used to counter the Congress narrative.
Sources said Jaitley advised the BJP spokespersons to not react at all, especially at the opposition attempt to project the deal as the Bofors scam of the NDA — an analogy to the controversy over the alleged kickbacks in the Swedish Bofors gun deal during the Rajiv Gandhi government in the 1980s.
Also read: Rafale deal is Bofors many times over, what it lacks is a V.P. Singh
Jaitley reportedly said if BJP spokespersons needed to counter the Congress allegations, it should be done in “humour” and not in “sincerity”.
“Congress would want us to play to their agenda. They would like to create this confusion in the minds of the people about the honesty of Modi government,” said one of the spokespersons present at the meeting.
“Why give them play? Don’t react is what the minister said and asked us to make fun of the allegations and not with sincerity and in seriousness”.
Portray Rahul as a clown prince: Jaitley
A source in the BJP said spokespersons were also told not to give credence to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi by reacting to his allegations, and instead were told to ridicule him.
“That is where Jaitley spoke about his remark calling Rahul a clown prince,” the source said. “The attempt should always be to poke fun at him. This will take away any credibility he gets when the BJP reacts to him,” the source quoted Jaitley as saying.
The gathering was also reportedly told to ridicule Rahul once a week as “he makes one silly statement every week”.
Also read: Rahul Gandhi hits out at Modi govt for targeting official who objected to Rafale deal
The spokespersons were also urged to hit back at the Congress hard and not hold back while doing shows on national or local media channels.
They have been asked to focus on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his image of a hard-working PM who doesn’t have time to sleep. “Along with this, the transparency and the accountability of government should be highlighted we were told,” the source said.
By telling the BJP workers and spokespersons to not answer questions on Rafale seriously and to simply ridicule Rahul, Arun Jaitley has made a clear admission that there has been a scam. A scam of gigantic proportions. Not only a case of crony capitalism but a clear case of jeopardising the nation’s security. BJP has no answers. They thought they could brazen it out. All their lies have been exposed and nailed, despite all the support they have from the media.
To quote Yogendra Yadav, “The confusion, contradictions and conceit in the government’s counter to the corruption allegations have made it worse. In the last couple of months, we have seen a political circus with every BJP leader and minister outbidding the rest in putting his or her foot in mouth on Rafale. First, the denials about public knowledge of cost, then claims about the cost being lower than the earlier deal. We have the spectacle of a defence minister running down HAL, one of the few public sector enterprises with a decent record and her claims being refuted by the retired HAL chief. Not far behind is the ministry of external affair’s faux-pax in making allegations of conflict of interest against former French President. Add to it the unseemly sight of the serving Air Force big-wigs being made to air opinions that are irrelevant, if not stepping into a political debate. Then we have the minister of spin doctoring, blogging away to show how incoherent and nervous this government is when it comes to the Rafale deal. And in case you were still unsure, the attempt to invoke Pakistan leaves you convinced that ‘daal me kuchh kaala hai’.
Arun Jaitley is telling his workers, Sorry, I cannot come up with any more lies. Go ahead and just ridicule them. Don’t answer them.
What words of wisdom from one of the so-called educated Ministers of the Government. What then could you expect from the others who pride on not being educated and having come from lowly backgrounds.
As Gibran would say,” Pity the nation whose leaders are liars and whose people do not throw them out.”
The opposition has been consistently asking only two questions: 1) why Anil Ambani, 2) why 1000 crores more per plane.
By instructing their spokespersons to not react to the above, the BJP has conceded that their answers so far have not been convincing, and they have no fresh answers. The matter is also before the SC now, through the case filed by Yashwant Sinha and others. That could be another reason — that the BJP will give their new answers, if any, only before the learned judges.
Why should hard working PM should deny sleep. Hundreds of hard working daily wagers are going hungry to sleep but unable as they don’t know how it is going to be tomorrow. It is not only Modi, all other PM’s in office are hard working, but they never asked their ministers like Jaitley or spokesperson of their party to publicise it. People who work hard don’t display it or publicise as the results of their real hard work would speak for itself