Taxpayers Will Pay Rs 1 Lakh Crore to 'Mr 56's Friend' for Rafale Deal: Rahul Gandhi

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posted on 6 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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The party has termed the deal as the "biggest example" of crony capitalism and has alleged that it had compromised national interest.

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi went back to attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the controversial Rafale deal and this time he said that taxpayers would have to dole out Rs 1 lakh crore over the next 50 years for the upkeep of 36 Rafale aircrafts that the country was purchasing.

In a tweet, Gandhi said, "Over the next 50 years, Indian Tax Payers will pay Mr 56's friend's JV, 100,000 Cr to maintain 36 RafaleScam jets, India is buying."

Over the next 50 years, Indian Tax Payers will pay Mr 56’s friend’s JV, 100,000 Cr to maintain 36 #RafaleScam jets, India is buying Raksha Mantri will address a Press CON to deny this, as usual But the truth is in the presentation I’m attaching pic.twitter.com/a90XNet7dU — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 28, 2018

The Congress chief alleged that there was "truth" to his claims, which would be denied "as usual" by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a press conference. Gandhi also enclosed a Reliance Infrastructure presentation with his tweet. The Congress party has been stepping up attack on BJP over the Rafale deal and accused Modi and Sitharaman of "lying" to the nation. In a tweet on Friday, Gandhi had also accused the BJP government of favouring Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence by granting it the ‘offset contracts’. He presented a recalculation that pegged the purported gain to Reliance Defence at $20 billion, equivalent to Rs 1.30 lakh crore, through the contracts in the deal.

Dear Trolls, I apologise for my earlier tweet in which I stated Mr 56’s friend’s JV, received 4 Billion US$’s of “off set” contracts. I forgot to add the 16 Billion US$ RAFALE “lifecycle” contract 20 BILLION US$, is the actual benefit. So Sorry!!#130000CroreRafaleScam — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 27, 2018

The party has termed the deal as the "biggest example" of crony capitalism. It further alleged that the deal had compromised national interest. It had also raised a notice for breach of privilege in the Lok Sabha against the PM and defence minister on the issue.