Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that Congress's Rafale campaign was based on 'peddled untruth'.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley slammed Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's pitch against Modi government over the Rafale fighter jet deal, underlining that every charge that the Congress had levelled against the NDA on pricing of the fighter jets is "factually false" and its claims based on "peddled untruth".
"This (allegations on Rafale deal) is like a kindergarten or primary school debate… Every fact that they (Congress) have said on pricing is factually false. Mr Rahul Gandhi himself has given 7 different prices in different speeches with regard to the 2007 Rafale offer," Jaitley said.
The National Democratic Alliance's decision to enter a $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale planes made by Dassault was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later.
But the Congress later claimed that India is paying more for the multi-role aircraft to France's Dassault than the deal negotiated by the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's.
According to the earlier plan, India was to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
The Congress offensive against the fighter jet deal is mostly led by Rahul Gandhi, who has invoked the deal in assembly elections and has made it clear that he intended to make it a central piece of the party's campaign ahead of the 2019 general elections.
(Featured image:The Hindu)
