Mumbai: Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that the Congress was brazenly misleading the nation over the Rafale deal. Despite knowing the rules of the deal, the Congress was making baseless allegations, she said. The rules of the deal were framed by the Congress itself during its reign. Ms Sitharaman said that the government was ready to answer all of Congress’s questions, wherever they wanted. She was speaking at the India Summit 2018 organised by The Economist at a hotel in south Mumbai.
The Congress alleged irregularities by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government in the Rafaledeal and the party also accused the government of favouring the Anil Ambani-led Reliance. Mr Ambani denied the Congress’s allegations.
To a query on the Rafale deal, Ms Sitha-raman said that the opposition had been asking questions about it and th-at they had not been an-swering the questions. She said that they had not ducked any of the questions or tried to deter the Congress from asking them.
“First, the Congress asked what was the basic price of the aircraft, then moving to asking what was the price of the aircraft with ammunition. It then moved to the offset policy; it knows the policy and its implications. The Congress keeps asking questions. It is making allegations of crony capitalism; even in 2012 when the MMRCA (Medium Multi-Role Combat Airc-raft) was being discussed, the very same organisation had an association with Dassault,” Ms Sitharaman said. Das-sault had made the decision whom to go with, she said. “I am 100 per cent sure that the Congress understands fully the substance of what it is talking about and also the implications of misleading and baseless allegations,” she said.
