Congress steps up Rafale attack, wants resignations of ministers

The Congress on Thursday demanded the resignations of defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, a day after the Supreme Court ruled it would consider information based on leaked official documents while deciding the merits of review petitions against its December 2018 verdict rejecting a court-monitored probe into the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal.

“The order of the Supreme Court in the Rafale review petition case is a huge rebuff to the central government, which raised the specious plea of `stolen documents’. We demand the resignation of the defence and law ministers who authorised the plea of ‘stolen documents’,” senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram tweeted.

His party colleague, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, alleged that the Modi government had made “lies, falsehood, deceit, treachery and fakery the foundation” of its defence in the Rafale deal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has refused to comment on the matter.

Addressing reporters at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, Singhvi said, “Their ‘defenceless’ defence minister and ‘lawless’ law minister’s fallacious arguments and bogus spins could not save the day for them after the Supreme Court order to hear the Rafale case afresh based on new evidences and documents.”

From day one, Singhvi alleged, the Modi government has lied in the Supreme Court.

“The Modi government mischievously lied to the Supreme Court when they said that the CAG [comptroller and auditor general] report on the Rafale’s pricing had been made public and examined by the Public Accounts Committee, a statement that was denied swiftly by PAC chairman Mallikarajun Kharge,” he claimed.