Rafale is Modi's Rs 30,000-crore free gift to Ambani: Rahul Gandhi

Stepping up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of comments made by former French president Francois Hollande over Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said that it is now clear to people that desh ka chowkidar chor hai (the country's gatekeeper is a thief).

“We are absolutely convinced that the prime minister of India is corrupt. This question is now clearly settled in the minds of Indian people that desh ka chowkidar chor hai,” Rahul Gandhi said in a press conference at the AICC headquarters.

Pointing to Hollande's interview in which he said Anil Ambani's company got the offset contract for Rafale deal at the insistence of the Union government and that the French side had no say in it, Rahul Gandhi said what the former president of France is saying is that “the prime minister is a thief”, and demanded that Modi breaks his silence on the deal now.

“It is very important for the prime minister of India now to either accept Mr Hollande's statement and say 'yes, Mr Hollande is telling the truth and Mr Narendra Modi gave the Rafale contract and Rs 30,000 crore to Mr Anil Ambani or that Mr Hollande is not telling the truth',” he said.

Rahul Gandhi said what the former president of France is saying is that there was a one-to-one meeting with the prime minister in which the contract was signed, and that in that meeting, the ex-president of France was clearly told by the prime minister that the contract had to go to Anil Ambani.

Attempting to puncture Modi's nationalistic credentials and project him as someone indulging in crony capitalism, the Congress chief said the dignity of the prime minister's office and the future of the soldiers have been compromised. He termed the offset contract given to Ambani's company a “free gift”, and went to the extent of claiming that Modi personally altered the terms of the contract that had been finalised by the previous UPA government, with the price escalating from Rs 526 crore to Rs 1,600 crore, to help Ambani. “Modi took out money from your pockets, from the pockets of our jawans and their families, and put it in Anil Ambani's pockets,” he said.

“The person who you trusted has betrayed you,” Rahul Gandhi said, adding, “chowkidaar chori kar gaya,”—a reference to Modi's assertions in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 that he would be the chowkidar (gatekeeper) of the country and ensure that no corruption takes place under his watch.

Rahul Gandhi also referred to his speech during the no-confidence motion in the monsoon session of Parliament, in which he had taken up the Rafale deal, to say that when he raised questions with regard to the purchase of the fighter aircraft, Modi was not able to look him in the eye. “He looked here and there, unable to look me in the eye.”

He said Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were being made to lie to defend Modi, who, he said, was personally culpable in the Rafale deal.

“Cent per cent, there is corruption in the Rafale deal and the prime minister took these decisions to benefit Ambani,” he said, also reiterating the Congress's demand that a Joint Parliamentary Committee should be set up to probe the alleged corruption in the procurement of the fighter aircraft.

The Congress has been persistent in using the alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal to try and discredit Modi over his claims of not allowing any corruption to take place and also portray him as a crony capitalist.

The party received fresh ammo to intensify its attack on the prime minister following Hollande's comments in an interview to a French publication that his government had no role in choosing Ambani's company for the offset contract as part of the Rafale deal, and that the Indian government proposed that the firm be made the offset partner.