Rafale Debate LIVE Live: Lok Sabha was adjourned on Wednesday after Congress MP Sushmita Dev flew paper planes to disrupt union minister Arun Jaitley’s rebuttal to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s offensive against the Narendra Modi government over the controversial Rafale Deal.
The Congress lawmaker flew the paper planes after Rahul Gandhi was stopped from playing an audio tape of Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane, in which he can purportedly be heard as saying that Goa CM and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar has “all the Rafale files in his bedroom and is holding the government to ransom”.
Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the tape cannot be played as it is not authenticated after Jaitley objected to it. Pointing fingers at Gandhi, he said that the Congress chief has lied repeatedly. On being stopped from playing the tape, Gandhi tried to read a transcript of it but his microphone was turned off.
He was also stopped from taking the name of Anil Ambani, whose firm Reliance Defence is the offset partner in the deal and came up with ‘AA moniker’ to continue his attack. In response, Jaitley raked up the Bofors deal and said the Congress chief must have learnt ‘AA’ as diary entries for Bofors deal had referred to alleged middleman of Bofors, Ottavio Quattrocchi, only as ‘Q’.
Saying that Gandhi had a legacy of lying, Jaitley said that Parrikar and Rane had already said that the tape was fake. He also said he was surprised that the conspirators of various defence deals have the audacity to raise questions against others, in an apparent reference to AgustaWestland, Bofors and National Herald cases. “Some people and families understand arithmatic of money but cannot comprehend issues of national security,” he said.
Gandhi, in his address, also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not answering a single question on the deal even in a staged interview on Tuesday that lasted an hour and a half, and said he did not have the guts to face his questions in Parliament. “He hides in his room.”
The Congress chief posed his own questions to the Prime Minister and asked why was the Air Force not consulted before the deal was changed from purchase of 126 aircraft to 36, why did the price increase, why has not a single jet come to India if there was such urgency and why did former France President Francois Hollande say that there was no choice given in picking an offset partner.
Gandhi, while spearheading the party’s charge against the Modi government on alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal, also asked why did the government not pick HAL that has 70 years of experience in manufacturing aircraft and chose ‘failed businessman’ Anil Ambani.
The Congress is demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into the contract signed by the NDA government with Dassault Aviation for procurement of 36 fighter jets after the Supreme Court refused to order a court-monitored probe.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had earlier in the day alleged Goa chief minister Manohar Parriakar, who was the defense minister when the Rafale deal was signed, is not being removed despite his ill health as he has some incriminating documents on the Rafale deal.
The party had released an audio tape of Goa’s health minister Vishwajit Rane, in which he is purpotedly speaking to ‘X’. In the tape released by Congress, Rane says Parrikar has Rafale deal files in his bedroom and is holding the Modi government to ransom and not leaving his post as Goa CM despite illness. The authenticity of the tape has not been verified by News18.com.
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