Rahul Gandhi addressed a press conference on Rafale deal attacking the Modi government.
After a debate in parliament on the Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi this evening dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a one-on-one debate on the deal for the 36 fighter jets from France.
"Just give me 20 minutes to debate with the PM… one -on-one debate on Rafale, combat jets… but he doesn't have the guts," Mr Gandhi said at a press conference.
Focusing much of his attack on PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi raised his 95-minute interview to news agency ANI yesterday. "The PM said nobody is raising questions on him over the Rafale deal… No, Mr PM, it is not like that," Mr Gandhi charged, and said the PM is answerable for a lot of things.
He then posed some questions to the PM: "Did the Air Force object to the new contract? How was the price escalated from Rs 526 crore to Rs 1,600 crore per aircraft? Anil Ambani has never manufactured aircraft – MiG, Mirage aircraft – Did the decision of giving them the onus of manufacturing aircraft was Air Force's or the PM's?"
In the parliament, earlier today, Mr Gandhi had accused the PM of "hiding in his room" and "lacking the guts" to face questions on the Rafale jet deal before being targeted in a lacerating rejoinder by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for what he called "repeated lies".
"It is a tragedy for the country that the Grand Old Party is headed today by a gentleman who doesn't have the understanding of what a combat aircraft is," Mr Jaitley had said in a no-holds-barred attack.