Congress General Secretary Shakti Singh Gohil Wednesday termed Rafale deal as the "grandmother of all corruption" and said the party would take out protest rallies at district level across the country from September 6 to "expose" the BJP government's involevement in the deal.
Protest rallies would be organised between September 6 to September 15, Gohil, who is party in-charge of Bihar, told reporters.
"We will not be confining ourselves in reaching to the people by holding press conferences alone on the issue of Rafale deal. But, we (party) will be holding rallies between September 6 to 15 at district headquarters level across the country to expose BJP government's involevement in the deal," Gohil said.
He said the party will also come out with a simple one page pamphlet in order to make the common men easily understand the corruption involved in the Rafale deal.
"This is not only an election issue, rather it is directly concerned with nation's security," Gohil flanked by Bihar Congress acting president Kaukab Qadri, former governor and senior party leader Nikhil Kumar, newly appointed AICC secretary and co-incharge Alpesh Thakore and Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh, said during press interaction.
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Charging the Narendra Modi government of making additional payment of Rs 43,000 crore for the purchase of 36 Rafale jets, he questioned as how the price of Rafale aircraft shot up by three times during Modi's tenure from intial Rs 526 crore to Rs 1670.70 crore.
Dassault company, which manufactures Rafale jets, tabled the report in France Parliament with regard to the deal in which it revealed the price of Rs 1670.70 crore at which the deal per jet has been clinched with India, the Congress leader from Gujarat added.
Gohil also wanted to know as why the government did not gave the work to manufacture Rafale jet to HAL, which went to a private company recently launched by Anil Ambani company.
Alleging that the BJP government is trying to "conceal" the facts under the garb of secrecy clause which is not a reality, Congress leader demanded the setting up of a "Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)" to probe the issue.
"If JPC is constituted everything will be clear once for all," he added.
Wondering that for the first time three defence ministers have been appointed in four years of Modi regime, he said that "Arun Jaitley and Manohar Parrikar managed to get rid of the ministry in order to escape corruption charge in Rafale deal. Nirmala (Sitharaman), being politically naive, is now being made the scapegoat," Gohil alleged.
BJP carried out a campaign against the Congress, alleging corruption in the Bofors deal, however no evidence was found against Rajiv Gandhi, he added.
The party may think of filing PIL if the government does not constitute a JPC or an inquiry by CAG into the issue, he said.
Gohil refused to take any question on any other issue be it farmers, law and order or grand alliance saying that his interaction is strictly confined only to Rafale deal and would answer all other questions in his another media interaction.
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