Rahul trains guns on Govt over Rafale deal, Arun Jaitley responds

Rahul Gandhi hauled the Narendra Modi led BJP government over the coals on the Rafale fighter deal seeking answers to pointed questions on the issue.

Electioneering through Central Gujarat on the second day of his two-day campaign in the poll bound state, Gandhi said “I have only a few questions that I seek answers to.”

“Did you not raise the cost of the Rafale fighters. Did you not give the contract to your industrialist friend? Why did you do so? There is a Cabinet Committee on Security, did you take permission from it? Yes or No,” asked the opposition leader as he stopped at wayside meetings while moving in a broad arch through the heartland of the state.

“When Modi ji was in France for Rafale deal, the defence minister was in Goa, buying fish. There are photographs that show it,” Rahul Gandhi told his audience at multiple stops.

He said that he wanted to raise these questions in the Parliament.

Rahul also cornered the Modi government on issues of GST, demonetisation and unemployment besides BJP chief Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah’s firm.

Meanwhile union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday sought to counter the Congress saying that all proper procedure had been followed in the French fighter defence deal. “It is a government to government deal which has a different process. He (Rahul) does not have experience of governance so he may be raising the issue,” Jaitley told media persons.

Jaitley said that the Rafale deal clearly shows that the UPA could not take a decision on it in ten years and it was a non-performing government which had compromised the combat ability of the Indian air force.

‘This was a transaction to empower our air force,” he added.

On the issue of Rafale choosing Anil Ambani’s company, he said that it was a decision of Rafale and the Indian government had no role to play in it.”