Rafale deal: Congress slams FM Jaitley, calls him court jester, blabber blogger

Hitting back at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for his 'clown prince jibe at Congress President Rahul Gandhi, the Congress on Tuesday, October 16, called the BJP veteran ‘blabber blogger and demanded that he coherently answer politically-relevant issues instead of “hiding behind the cloak of expletives for the opposition”.

Replying to Jaitley's blog wherein he called Gandhi a “clown prince” and ridiculed him for “building false narratives” on different issues including the Rafale deal, the Congress called them "hollow rants" of a "desperate court jester" and said India needs a Finance Minister, not a "babble blogger".

Taking to Twitter, Congress Communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said that the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley should stop hiding behind his incompetence, ineptitude and mismanagement.

Continuing the attack on the fighter jets deal with France, the Congress demanded to know why Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) was "superseded" for Rs 30,000-crore contract to benefit cronies, why transfer of technology was "sacrificed" and why "national security was compromised" by reducing the number of aircraft from 126 to 36.

It also queried why the government was shying away from making public HAL files pertaining to a "work share agreement between HAL and Rafale maker Dassault, as claimed by former HAL chief T.S. Raju.

The party also cited a 2016 Reliance Defence press release, a presentation made by the company as well as its annual report 2016-17 to substantiate its claims that the private company bagged Rs 30,000 crore of offset contract and Rs 1,00,000 crore of life-cycle contract.