Rahul ramps up Rafale attack: ‘ PM directly involved’
FRESH STORM Both Houses rocked by protests over media report, defence minister dismisses it as ‘flogging dead horse’
A fresh political firestorm broke out on Friday over a report that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had conducted parallel talks with the French government over the ₹59,000-crore Rafale jet fighter deal and had prompted the Union ministry of defence (MOD) to protest that the PMO was undermining India’s negotiating position.
Both houses of Parliament were rocked by Opposition protests over the newspaper report, which defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed as “flogging a dead horse,” saying periodic inquiries by the PMO “cannot be construed as interference”. In a statement in the Lok Sabha, she said the opposition parties were playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests.
Members of the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) strode to the well of the house, chanting slogans and showing placards referring to the report. Opposition members shouted slogans demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi resign.
The report handed fresh ammunition to the Opposition to attack Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government ahead of 2019 general elections. The controversial defence deal, together with agrarian unrest, unemployment, and the
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alleged undermining of institutions such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Reserve Bank of India are at the heart of the Opposition campaign.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi reiterated his demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe of the Rafale deal and used the report, published in The Hindu, to step up his attack on Modi.
“We have been saying this for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam…it is absolutely black and white that the Prime Minister himself was carrying a parallel negotiation with the French,” Gandhi said at a press conference in New Delhi.
The newspaper report cited a 24 November, 2015 defence ministry note to then defence minister Manohar Parrikar as saying that “we may advise the PMO that any officers who are not part of the Indian Negotiating Team (INT) may refrain from having parallel parlays (parleys) with the officers of French govern-