New Delhi:-The Congress today accused the
central government of stonewalling questions over the Rafale
fighter deal, saying there was a “conspiracy of silence” and
an attempt to “bypass the national interest”.
Party spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi also claimed that
the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was not in the loop
when the agreement to procure 36 fighter planes from France
was signed in 2016 and demanded that he “break his silence” on
the issue.
Addressing a press conference here on the issue which her
party has been raising at various fora, Chaturvedi said
Parrikar’s “silence amounts to agreement to the conspiracy
that has betrayed the nation.”
She alleged that the Modi government had made “self-
interest as its primary goal over the national interest.”
The spokesperson claimed that the union government had
overpriced the aircraft, reduced the number of aircraft and
taken the offset benefit away from a public sector company and
handed it over to a “friendly” private company.
“I dont call Rafale a deal. It is a scam. And what the
government is doing and how it is trying to defend itself is
nothing but a sham,” Chaturvedi said.
“There is a conspiracy of silence to hide the
investigation or to take responsibility to carry out an
investigation in a very open and shut case of how you can help
your own people and bypass national interest,” she added.
She said Parrikar, now the Chief Minister of Goa, was not
even present in France when the deal was signed.
“Forget presence, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had
not even been prepared for the prime ministers announcement
(about the deal) and was caught off-guard. What we understand
is that he (Parrikar) did not even know a deal has been
negotiated, signed and agreed upon,” She said.
The Congress spokesperson said her party expects
Parrikar, who held the defence portfolio from November 2014 to
March 2017, to answer questions related to the deal.
