Congress to 'gherao' PM Modi's residence in protest against Rafale deal

New Delhi, Aug 30: After engaging in a war of words with the BJP over the price of the Rafale fighter jets, The Congress is likely to gherao Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence over the same on Thursday.

The protest comes a day after finance minister Arun Jaitley and Congress president Rahul Gandhi traded fresh charges on the Rafale deal.

Jaitley and Gandhi accused each other with the former calling the latter as "peddling in untruth", and the latter responding by terming it as "the great robbery".

It all started with Jaitley, in a Facebook blog, posting a set of 15 questions for Gandhi in response to Congress posers on the multi-billion dollar deal.

He said the 36 Rafale fighter jets which the BJP-led government is purchasing are 20 per cent cheaper than the ones the UPA government had received.

Gandhi responded by calling the deal "the great Rafale robbery" and alluded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi trying to protect his business friend.

"Mr. Jaitley, thanks for bringing the nation's attention back to the GREAT #RAFALE ROBBERY! How about a Joint Parliamentary Committee to sort it out? Problem is, your supreme leader is protecting his friend, so this may be inconvenient. Do check & revert in 24 hrs. We're waiting!," Gandhi tweeted.

Meanwhile, Anil Ambani too termed the allegations as "baseless, ill-informed and unfortunate."

Ambani said, "truth alone will prevail" as the charges are driven by "malicious vested interests and corporate rivals."

Ambani was responding to a question from the media as to why he chose to exclude the Congress president in the Rs 5,000-crore defamation case filed by his company on the Rafale deal.