Continuing his attack on the Modi Government over the Rafale deal issue, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday urged all Indians to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Ministers the questions he posed in Parliament on the fighter jet agreement with France.
“RM (Raksha Manti) spoke for 2 hrs in Parliament, but she couldn’t answer the 2 simple questions I asked her,” Rahul tweeted. He also posted a video of the two questions he posed to the defence minister in Parliament. Posting the video on his Twitter account, Rahul said: “Watch & share this video. Let every Indian ask the PM & his Ministers these questions.” With his tweet, Rahul used the hashtag “2SawalDoJawab”.
Rahul also hit out at Modi over clashes in a Gujarat village between the police and farmers, saying farmers were “distressed” under the BJP's rule. “Modiji is beating his chest over the Congress’s loan waiver. He has said for the Congress, farmers are a vote bank. Now see the condition of the farmers in Gujarat. Under the BJP’s rule, farmers are in distress,” the Congress chief said in a Facebook post in Hindi.
His remarks came after clashes broke out on Wednesday between the police and farmers protesting against limestone mining by a private firm near a village in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district, leaving several policemen and agitators injured.
The Congress also accused the Modi Government of “squandering” the assets of public sector undertakings such as HAL and ONGC to “favour a select few”. Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel tweeted: “HAL is borrowing Rs 1,000 crore because it can’t even pay salaries?”
His tweet came after a media report claimed that defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, grappling with low finances, for the first time in years, has been forced to borrow money to pay salaries to its employees.
“Not just HAL; be it ONGC, LIC, HPCL,GSPC or any other PSU, this Government has squandered their assets to favour a select few,” Patel alleged.
Citing the media report, Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “Under Modiji, India’s largest public sector defence unit, HAL does not even have enough cash to pay salaries to its employees. For the first time in 70 years, they were forced to borrow Rs 1,000 crore.” “Despite that, no Rafale contract for them Apathetic!” he tweeted.
The Congress has alleged irregularities in the deal for 36 aircraft and claimed that the Narendra Modi Government is buying them at a price much higher than the one that was being negotiated by the previous Government. The party has also been accusing the Government favouring of Anil Ambani’s firm over HAL in the Rafale jets deal. The Government as well as Ambani have rejected all such allegations.