Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : The ruling BJP on Thursday took on the Congress and its former chief Rahul Gandhi, asking its leader to apologise to the country and the BJP for “misleading and telling lies” on the Rafale fighter jet deal.
The Congress has always compromised on national security, Law Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said accusing the Congress and Gandhi of running a “prayojit karyakram”, a sponsored programme on Rafale.
“It was indeed the lowest form of political discourse when Rahul Gandhi stopped to a new low of misquoting the Supreme Court,” he said on the Supreme Court verdicts related to Rafale and Gandhi.
Listing out various “lies” spoken by Gandhi in his election rallies and the floor of the Parliament, Prasad said, “Gandhi deliberately misquoted the SC and carried out a campaign against India’s honest Prime Minister and degraded the country in the world.”
“You may have apologised to the Supreme Court to save yourself from contempt proceedings but will you be able to look into the eyes of the people for your shameful conduct, that is why you need to apologise to the nation,” he said.
Prasad said the whole campaign was “shrouded in deeply suspicious circumstances”, questioning Gandhi on whose behest he ran the campaign. “His campaign against the PM did not appear to be an attempt to stop corruption but help those who did not get the contract,” Prasad said.
BJP working president JP Nadda said the Congress leader had tried to mislead the country on the issue and should now apologise.
Asserting that truth had prevailed, Nadda said, “From road to Parliament, Rahul Gandhi and his party tried hard to mislead the country on the issue but truth prevailed. I wish Rahul would be in country and should apologise to the nation.”
BJP leaders also took a dig at the former Congress president after the apex court asked him to be careful in future while closing a plea for contempt case against him for wrongly attributing certain comments on the Rafale deal to it.
“SC rejects review petitions on Rafale deal & raps Rahul Gandhi & asks him to be careful in future. Huge victory for Narendra Modi-led government,” BJP general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh tweeted.
