Congress calls for Joint Parliamentary Committee to look into Rafale deal

The Congress party on Sunday hit out at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over his latest dismissal of any scam with regard to the Rafale deal and demanded constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to look into issues pertaining to the controversial deal.

Speaking to the reporters, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said, "There should be a constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to look into this issue and the matter needs to be investigated thoroughly."

Another Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge echoed similar sentiments and said that "Prime Minister Modi has kept him (FM Jaitley) in the cabinet only to make comments and attack opposition. I would like to tell Jaitley ji, your tall claims and words are not going to fill the stomach of the common man."

Earlier in the day in an exclusive interview to ANI, the Finance Minister rejected all the allegations of a scam in the Rafale fighter plane deal and said that whether the planes are bought at a higher rate or not is a matter for the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to examine.

Jaitley also questioned the timing of the September 21 statement by former French President Francois Hollande and Rahul Gandhi's tweet of August 30 where he said that "some big bunker buster bombs in the next couple of weeks" with regard to the controversy surrounding the Rafale deal, terming the two "orchestrated".

-ANI