Probe everybody, including PM, in Rafale deal: Rahul Gandhi

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, along with party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, addresses the media in New Delhi on Thursday.  

'MEDIA' is being punished for being brave by publishing reports on the Rafale fighter deal, he says.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said media is being punished for being brave by publishing reports on the Rafale fighter deal, but declined to give a clear answer to whether the party favours scrapping the Officials Secret Act (OSA).

“That’s a technical question and I won't be able to answer about the Officials Secret Act from this platform. But I do want to comment that you are being punished for being brave,” he told this reporter to a query in this regard.

Mr. Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of performing a bypass surgery in the Rafale deal and asserted that Mr. Modi should offer to conduct an inquiry.

"The government now says it will investigate the media for the Rafale files being stolen. But the one [Mr Modi] who conducted parallel investigation…why will he not be investigated?” he asked.

He said it was clearly written in the Defence Ministry files that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) carried out parallel negotiations in the deal.

"If the documents have been stolen, that means they are authentic and they clearly state that parallel negotiations were carried out by the Prime Minister, the price of the jets were inflated and the delivery of the jets were delayed,” he alleged.

"Let there be an investigation about the documents, but at the same time also investigate the Prime Minister's role in the Rafale [deal]," he said.

 

“Gayab'', the new word

A new word has come up now: 'gayab' (disappearance), Mr. Gandhi said, a day after the Central government submitted before the Supreme Court that Rafale files were stolen from the Defence Ministry.

“Two crore jobs have disappeared, right prices for farmers' have disappeared, the promised ₹15 lakh for everybody has disappeared and now the Rafale files have disappeared,” he said. The Rafale papers have disappeared in the same way as jobs did, following demonetisation and implementation of the GST.

Mr. Gandhi also hit back at the BJP for calling the Congress a "poster boy" of Pakistan in the aftermath of the February 26 Indian Air Force strike on a terror camp in Balakot, Pakistan.

“It is he [Mr. Modi] who is Pakistan's poster boy, not us,” he said, adding that it was Mr. Modi who had invited then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff and asked Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to probe the Pathankot terror attack.