Jaitley poses 15 questions to 'expose Congress party’s falsehood' on Rafale deal

New Delhi, Aug 29: Countering Congress charges against Narendra Modi government on Rafale deal, posed as many as 15 questions to the opposition party and wanted to know if delay by the UPA government on the matter did seriously compromise national security.

"I am asking these questions as his misadventure is impairing national interest and I hope Rahul Gandhi and the Congress Party would respond immediately," Arun Jaitley said in a blog on Facebook.

Every fact raised by Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are completely false and the party just wants to further delay the defence procurement so that India's defence preparedness suffers," he said.

How is it that Shri Rahul Gandhi quoted a price of Rs.700 crores per aircraft in Delhi and Karnataka in April and May this year? In Parliament, he reduced it to Rs.520 crore per aircraft, in Raipur he increased it to Rs.540 crores; in Jaipur he used the two figures - Rs.520 crores and Rs.540 crores in the same speech. In Hyderabad, he invented a new price of Rs.526 crores. Truth has only one version, falsehood has many. Are these allegations being made without any familiarity with the facts of the Rafale purchase?

Is Mr. Gandhi or the Congress Party aware of price comparison? Is Mr. Gandhi aware of the aircraft price, which was quoted in 2007 in the L1 bid? Is he aware that there was an escalation clause, which by 2015 when the NDA struck the price deal, would have further escalated the price?

He said that the Congress Party's false campaign on Rafale aircraft deal based on peddled untruth has been casting a cloud on the Inter-Governmental agreement and seriously compromising national security.

Read Jaitley's full FB blog: