Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday once again accused Rahul Gandhi of peddling a “false narrative” and believing it in “self-delusion”, betraying signs that the BJP is increasingly getting rattled by the Congress president’s attacks over the Rafale deal and other issues.
“Today I feel it is much more than hallucination. Is it a personality issue where he lies a dozen times and then in self-delusion believes it to be true or is it a case of a ‘Clown Prince’ out-clowning himself?” Jaitley wrote in a blog, referring to Rahul’s allegations during his poll campaign in Madhya Pradesh.
On the Rafale issue, Jaitley said Rahul’s claim that a private business house in India (Anil Ambani’s Reliance group) had got an advantage ranging from Rs 38,000 crore to Rs 1,30,000 crore was false.
The finance minister said the truth was that offset supplies would be made by not one but 120 suppliers and the private business house referred to by Rahul was only one of them. Without naming the house, Jaitley said only 3 per cent of the offset supply might come from it, which is less than Rs 1,000 crore.
“These supplies to Dassault are to be made by over 120 suppliers and which the business house named is one of them. Dassault has said that only 3% of offset may come to that business house which is less than Rs 1,000 crore,” he wrote.
Jaitley dubbed as a lie Rahul’s claim that the government had waived the loans of 15 industrialists close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Jaitley claimed he had corrected Rahul on mobile phones being manufactured in India and said that the Congress chief was now lying by asking in public meetings why footwear could not be manufactured in India.
“He now tells his audiences why footwears are not being manufactured in the district, where he is speaking. Ill-informed as he is, India has become the second largest manufacturer of footwear in the world,” Jaitley wrote.
He said that in his Madhya Pradesh speeches Rahul had accused him of meeting diamantaire Nirav Modi in Parliament and facilitating his escape from the country, denying the allegation.
“I do not recollect ever having even seen Nirav Modi in my life. The question of his meeting me in Parliament does not arise,” Jaitley wrote.
On fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya, Jaitley iterated that the industrialist had chased him in the corridor of Parliament and that he didn’t pay heed to him and coldly rebuffed him and asked him to make proposals to his bankers. “This he (Rahul) says constitutes a meeting where he told me that he was escaping to London. Absolute lie,” Jaitley wrote in a statement, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said: “Arun Jaitley’s desperation to stay relevant as a ‘Court Jester’ to ‘Modi Sultanate’ is making him stoop to a new level every day. ‘Abuse’, ‘Diversion’ & ‘Deception’ appear to be the only tools in the fake armoury.”
Another Congress spokesperson, Manish Tewari, said: “This is a funny government. What should be answered by the defence minister is answered by the finance minister, what should be answered by the finance minister is not answered by anybody….”