‘Defence Minister is doing drama, not answering questions’: Rahul Gandhi on Rafale deal

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday reiterated his questions on Rafale deal and regretted that instead of answering his questions, both Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had chosen to abuse him.

The Defence Minister had spoken for more than two and a half hours to defend the Rafale deal but did not answer even when he sought a direct answer in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the questions whether the Defence ministry had objected to the benchmark price for Rafale and to the PMO waiving performance guarantee.

No answer has been to the question why a deal to supply 126 fighter planes was reduced to 36 fighter planes. While the Defence Minister claimed that in the deal worked out by the UPA Government, 18 planes were to be supplied off the shelf, the Modi government had doubled the number to 36 planes to be bought off the shelf. But she did not explain why the UPA’s arrangement to have 108 Rafale planes to be manufactured in India was jettisoned.

While the Defence Minister admitted that Prime Minister Modi had done a bypass surgery, she would not respond to the question if Defence ministry officials had objected to the bypass surgery.

"The defence minister did not answer any of the questions I asked on the Rafale deal. She did not even take the name of Anil Ambani," Rahul Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament.

Rahul Gandhi said he put two questions to the minister towards the end of the debate and asked her to reply in yes or no.

"I asked that after a long negotiation process, those people who participated in that negotiations -- Air Force chief, defence minister, secretaries, Air Force officials -- when the prime minister did a 'bypass surgery'... did the Air Force people object, yes or know," Rahul Gandhi said.

"And you saw that instead of answering this, the defence minister started doing drama that 'I have been insulted, I was called a liar'," he said.

It was a straight question and without answering that she "ran away", the Congress chief said. "The PM cannot come (to Parliament), and the chief minister of Goa is saying I have a file and I will get back at the PM. She gave a two-and-a-half hour speech and did not answer any questions," Rahul Gandhi said.

Earlier, the Congress President had raised the following questions in the Lok Sabha:

• How was the deal negotiated after eight years of hard work changed?
• Did the Indian Air Force ask you to change the deal and purchase 36 aircraft instead of 126?
• Is there an objection by defence ministry officials to the increase in the benchmark price mentioned on the files?
• Is there a file noting (by a defence ministry official) asking the Prime Minister’s Office not to interfere?

On Wednesday evening, the Congress President cheekily ‘leaked’ four more questions, distilled from the earlier ones, for the Prime Minister, who is claimed to have written a book “ Exam Warriors” to help students facing examinations, to respond to.

Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed?

Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft?

Q4. Why AA instead of HAL?

He held back the third question before tweeting,

Q3: Modi Ji, please tell us why Parrikar Ji keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom & what’s in it?”

With PTI inputs