Rafale allegations unsubstantiated, reprocessed lies: Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: Union Minister Arun Jaitley today termed allegations of misdoings in Rafale fighter deal as "unsubstantiated" and "reprocessed lies" and said these are being levelled by forces which are increasingly desperate to prove their relevance.

"There is not a grain of truth in the wild allegations repeated today nor anything substantiating in the purported facts and voluminous documents marshalled to corroborate the baseless accusations, Jaitley said in a Facebook post titled 'The Rafale Falsehood Repeated'.

His blog comes amidst allegations of scandal in Rafale fighter deal levelled by Prashant Bhushan and two former BJP ministers - Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.


"The unsubstantiated allegations against the Government constitute nothing but reprocessed lies by forces increasingly desperate to prove their relevance. The Government had already responded effectively to each and every distortion and misinformation on the issue," Jaitley said.

He said such allegations are just "another attempt at maligning the Government by spreading falsehood and paddling fabricated facts regarding the 2016 Inter-Governmental Agreement for the procurement of Rafale fighter aircraft."

He said it is even "more reprehensible" that this fresh attempt to "tarnish the image of the Government" came less than two weeks after the "miserable failure" of a similar effort in Parliament.

The NDA government had last month won a no-trust vote brought by opposition members.

"Those raising alarm about the alleged danger to national security ought to realise their responsibility and refrain from politicising for narrow individual ends those very matters pertaining to defence of the nation that were consistently ignored by them and by those with whom they sympathise," Jaitley said.