Rafale deal scam: Congress president Rahul Gandhi hits out at Nirmala Sitharaman, calls her ‘Rafale Minister’; demands resignation

Mounting his attack on the Central government over Rafale deal scam, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday demanded her resignation after the former boss of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited TS Raju said that the state-run plane manufacturer could have built Rafale fighters in India.

Sharing the news link of Raju’s statement, Gandhi tweeted “The RM (Rafale Minister) tasked with defending corruption has been caught lying again. The former HAL Chief, T S Raju, has nailed her lie, that HAL didn’t have the capability to build the RAFALE. Her position is untenable & she must resign”.

“When HAL can build a 25-tonne Sukhoi-30, a fourth-generation fighter jet that forms the mainstay of the air force, from raw material stage, then what are we talking about? We could have definitely done it (licence produced the Rafale jets),” Raju was quoted by the Hindustan Times as saying.

The Narendra Modi government and the Opposition have been facing off over the controversial deal worth 59, 000-crore done between India and France. The opposition has been demanding to reveal the price of jets by pointing out the contradiction of the statements given by the Union Ministers.

On Tuesday, Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that HAL was ‘ dropped’ from the deal when the UPA was in power because it could not agree on terms of production with Dassault.

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