Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday engaged in a bitter war of words on the controversial Rafale deal with both accusing each other of lying over the claims on award of work orders to state-owned Hindustan Aeronautic Limited (HAL). Citing a media report, Rahul alleged the Defence Minister “lied” in Parliament that the Government orders worth Rs 1 lakh crore were provided to HAL, prompting Sitharaman to shoot back that it was a matter of “shame” that the Congress president was misleading the country on the issue. She also tweeted details of contract awarded to HAL since 2014 when the BJP came to power.
Rahul’s attack came after a media report claimed that “not a single rupee of the said Rs 1 lakh crore has come to HAL, since not a single order, as claimed, has been signed till now”. The media report cited senior HAL management officials in order to back its claim.
The Defence Minister hit back at Rahul for his remarks, asking him to read “the complete report” to “which you are referring”. “The LS record shows,” Sitharaman did not claim the orders were signed, saying. “they were in the works.”
Sitharaman tweeted, quoting from the media report, to assert that she had not stated in Parliament that the orders to HAL had been signed.
“When you tell one lie, you need to keep spinning out more lies to cover up the first one. In her eagerness to defend the PM’s Rafale lie, the RM (Raksha Mantri) lied to Parliament. Tomorrow (Monday), RM must place before Parliament documents showing Rs 1 lakh crore of Government orders to HAL. Or resign,” Rahul tweeted.
Sitharaman’s office later tweeted, “Dear Shri @RahulGandhi, looks like you really need to start from ABC. Someone like you who is hell bent on misleading the public will quote an article even before reading it.”
Her office also accused Rahul of “lying” and said HAL has signed contracts worth Rs 26,570.8 crore between 2014 and 2018 and contracts worth Rs 73,000 crore are in the pipeline. “Will @RahulGandhi apologise to the country from the floor of the House and resign?” her office tweeted.
The Congress has been targeting the Government alleging that it denied HAL an offset contract under the Rafale fighter jets deal with France, a charge the Government has denied. The BJP has accused the Congress of not supporting HAL during its rule and asserted that the Government is now strengthening the defence public sector undertaking.
Rahul had on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “weakening” HAL to help his “suit-boot” friend. Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the Defence Minister’s lies have been exposed. “For the first time, HAL forced to take a loan of Rs 1,000 crore to pay salaries!,” he added.