Rahul misleading country on Rafale: VK Singh
TURNING HEAT Referring to Cong chief’s statement on court’s judgment on deal, Singh alleges that Gandhi has been disrespecting country’s democratic institutions
The apex court has given a clean chit to the Centre on all the four petitions that had been filed on different aspects of the fighter jet deal. Yet he (Gandhi) is questioning it. VK SINGH, union minister
DEHRADUN: Accusing Congress president Rahul Gandhi of trying to take political advantage by questioning the Supreme Court’s judgment on the central government’s Rafale fighter jet deal with France, union minister General VK Singh (retd) on Sunday asked the Gandhi family “if it is above” the country’s top court.
“The apex court has given a clean chit to the Centre on all the four petitions that had been filed on different aspects of the fighter jet deal. Yet he (Gandhi) is questioning it (apex court),” said the minister of state for external affairs. “Is that one (Gandhi) family above the country’s top court,” he questioned.
Addressing a press conference during his visit to Dehradun, Singh alleged that Gandhi had been misleading the country on the deal for the past four years.
“He has been repeatedly making false allegations against the Centre on that issue with the sole motive of taking political advantage,” he said.
“Gandhi is doing so assuming that if he continued repeating a lie hundred times, at least 50% of the citizens of this country would start believing him.”
The Congress president is on record stating that corruption had taken place in the contract, which he asserted would be proved by his party.
“The basis of the (apex) court judgment is a CAG report that has neither been seen by anyone nor shared with Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee,” Gandhi had alleged.
Referring to the Congress president’s statement on the top court’s judgment on the Rafale fighter jet deal, Singh alleged that he (Gandhi) had been disrespecting the country’s democratic institutions, Singh alleged.
The union minister said the SC had given the Centre a clean chit not only on the decision making process but also on the charges that it tried to influence Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, to choose the Reliance company as its offset partner instead of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).
The Centre was also been given a clean chit on charges that it gave Reliance ₹30, 000 crore as part of the deal.
Singh said the top court described the Rafale fighter jet deal as a “final advantage” to the nation.
“It also clarified that there was no need for a probe into the related cases as there had been no irregularities in that deal,” he said accusing the Congress of running away from a debate on that issue in Parliament.
“They don’t want to face a debate because they will get exposed as their allegations aren’t based on facts… In fact, their sole motive is to take political advantage by misleading the people,” Singh alleged.
He asked the Congress to explain why it did not finalise the Rafale deal for four years despite being in power.
“They avoided doing so despite clear recommendations by the Air Force that those (Rafale) fighter aircraft were required to enhance its strike capability,” Singh said referring to the erstwhile Congressled UPA government at the Centre.
“Who was it waiting for; was it waiting for a middleman?” he asked accusing the previous Congress government of being responsible for weakening the strike capability of the Air Force.
Putting Gandhi on the dock, Singh asked him to explain why the previous UPA government failed to recommend HAL as an offset partner of Dassault Aviation, the manufacturers of Rafale jet fighters despite being in power at the Centre.