Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday continued his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal and reached out to young voters and members of the armed forces about corruption in the deal. Gandhi said the Prime Minister's Office held “parallel negotiations” even as the ministry of defence was negotiating the Rafale deal and charged that Modi and the MOD had lied to the nation.
Gandhi was speaking at a press conference called in the wake of a report in The Hindu on Friday, which alleged that the negotiating team constituted by the ministry of defence to finalise the Rafale deal had objected to “parallel negotiations” by the Prime Minister's Office. The Hindu reproduced an internal letter from the ministry of defence that claimed the parallel negotiations had “weakened” the Indian position on negotiating the Rafale deal.
The ministry of defence letter was dated November 2015, nearly seven months after Modi initially announced a deal to buy 36 Rafale jets from France while on a state visit.
Referring to the leaked letter, Gandhi said the document proved that Modi's involvement in modifying the Rafale deal to benefit industrialist Anil Ambani was an “open and shut” case.
Gandhi also reiterated the claims of then French president Francois Hollande that Modi's government wanted Ambani as the offsets partner for the Rafale deal. Appealing to the armed forces, Gandhi claimed the ministry of defence letter proved Modi had “stolen” Rs 30,000 crore, meant for the military, to benefit Ambani.