The Congress party hit out at the Narendra Modi government for not responding to the alleged corruption around ndia's ₹ 59,000-crore Rafale jet deal.
A judicial investigation has been ordered by France’s national financial prosecutors’ office, following Mediapart’s fresh reports in April of alleged wrongdoings in the deal as well as a complaint filed by French NGO Sherpa that specialises in financial crime.
Earlier yesterday, the Congress has demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC) probe into the Rafale deal, alleging corruption in the purchase of the fighter jets, and said such an investigation is the only way forward to find the truth.
In a mocking tweet posted in Hindi today, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asked why Prime Minister Modi's government wasn't ready for a JPC probe. The options he provided as answer were: "guilt conscience," "friends, too, need to be protected", "JPC doesn't need a Rajya Sabha seat", and "all the options are right".
Along with this, party spokesperson Pawan Khera questioned as to why the central government was silence after the French government initiated probe.
"It's been 24 hours since France has ordered a probe on matters like corruption, influence peddling, money laundering, favouritism. The whole nation, the whole world is now looking to New Delhi. Why the silence?" Mr Khera said.
"Now it is getting clearer that in the Rafale deal we have bought an item that costs ₹ 570 crore at ₹ 1,670 crore," he said.
Rahul Gandhi has been alleging corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal for long now and had made this as a major poll plank in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which the Congress lost.
