Rafale row gets nasty as Rahul Gandhi calls PM Modi ‘a thief’
Politics

Rafale row gets nasty as Rahul Gandhi calls PM Modi ‘a thief’

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hits back and accuses Rahul Gandhi of helping Pakistan by questioning price of Rafale fighter jets.

   
Rafale aircraft

A Rafale fighter aircraft | Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hits back and accuses Rahul Gandhi of helping Pakistan by questioning price of Rafale fighter jets.

New Delhi: Former French President Francois Hollande’s claim that the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had foisted Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence on French aerospace giant Dassault for offsets in the Rafale fighter jet deal triggered a nasty war of words Saturday.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi called PM Modi “a thief” and union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hit back at him and accused him of “helping Pakistan” by questioning the price of the fighter jets.

In an interview to a French website Friday, Hollande had claimed that it was the government of India that had suggested Anil Ambani’s company as offset partner in the Rafale deal and the French had no choice in it.


Also read: Sitharaman blames UPA for not making HAL an ‘appealing’ enough partner for Rafale


It contradicted the Modi government’s claims that the French manufacturer had chosen Reliance Defence and the government had nothing to do with it. The opposition Congress has been accusing Modi of helping Ambani by getting the contract for his company, reportedly formed just days before the 2015 signing of the government-to-government agreement to purchase 36 Rafale fighter planes.

Addressing a press conference Saturday, Rahul Gandhi said Hollande’s statement “calls PM Modi a thief” and puts the PMO directly “under scrutiny”. The Congress President demanded a joint parliamentary committee probe into it, saying Hollande could also be called to testify. “We are absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister is corrupt,” he said.

“There was a one-on-one meeting between the Prime Minister of India and the then President of France. In that meeting, the contract was signed and the ex-President of France has now said that in that meeting, I was clearly told that the contract had to go to Mr Anil Ambani,” Rahul Gandhi told reporters.

“It is now up to the Prime Minister of India to clear his name. We are absolutely convinced that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt. This question is now clearly settled into the minds of the Indian people.”

“For the first time probably in Indian history, an ex-French President is calling our Prime Minister a ‘thief’. So, it is very important that the Prime Minister makes it very clear what his position is.

“It is the question of the dignity of the office of the PMO, it is the question, it is a defence related question, it is a question of future of our jawans, the future of our soldiers, the future of our Air Force. And what I am surprised by is that the Prime Minister is completely silent.”


Also read: Modi govt’s Rafale deal has more skeletons in its closet: Former defence minister Antony


Rahul Gandhi urged the prime minister to tell the truth or say that Hollande is lying.

The BJP was quick to hit back, with union minister Prasad terming Gandhi’s statement as “shameful, irresponsible”.

“No one has ever spoken about the country’s prime minister the way Rahul Gandhi did,” Prasad said.

He alleged that the UPA had terminated the contract for the Rafale deal in 2012 because it did not “get the bribe”. Prasad also said that Reliance and Dassault had entered into a contract back in 2012.

Saying that he didn’t know “under what compulsion” Hollande made the statement Friday, Prasad cited subsequent statements by the French government and Dassault to maintain that it was for the French company to pick its Indian partner.

Elsewhere, union home minister Rajnath Singh advised Rahul Gandhi not to make allegations against the government on the Rafale issue without proof.

“One should think four times before levelling any baseless allegation. One should not make allegations without proof,” PTI quoted Singh as saying in Amreli in Gujarat.