Rafale: Arun Jaitley trying obfuscation when faced with RBI’s note ban data, says Congress

Congress has dismissed finance minister Arun Jaitley’s defence of Rafale deal as “an obvious attempt at obfuscation” when his government was faced with the Reserve Bank of India data on demonetisation.

AICC spokesperson Manish Tewari on Wednesday said the finance minister should, instead, simply answer two questions: Since the joint statement by Prime Minister of India and President of France “states the Rafale aircraft and associated system and weapons will be delivered on the same configuration as had been tested and approved by Indian Air Force”, why can’t the government state whether IAF at all reevaluated the aircraft specifications since UPA closed negotiations and before the Modi regime purchased Rafale in 2015, and “why can’t the government simply release the price at which it purchased the Rafale jets in 2015 and the price at which the UPA government had closed the negotiations in 2012?”

Secondly, the Congress asked Jaitley “if the prime minister, the finance minister and the non-functioning defence minister have nothing to hide on the Rafale deal, why was the government shying away from accepting the opposition demand to constitute a JPC to probe the Rafale matter?” Tewari also alleged that the finance minister’s defence of the Rafale matter coming exactly at the time when RBI was releasing the demonetisation figures “was an obvious attempt at obfuscation”.


“In the process, the FM was trying to cover up one scandal with another scandal,” he said. “This is a very funny government,” Tewari alleged. “The FM speaks on defence affairs, the non-functioning defence minister holds forth on finance affairs. The FM writes blog on legal matters and law minister holds forth on many issues in a manner that only he understands what he meant. And the railway minister doubles up as FM. Collectively, responsibility in this government is such that no minister has responsibility of his ministry’s matters.”