Modi Attacks Congress In Sonia Gandhi’s Turf Rae Bareli

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tore into the Congress in Sonia Gandhi's home turf, saying the party was “agitated” and telling “lies” as there were no wrongdoings his government's defense deals.

Modi, addressing a crowd in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh slammed the Congress for trying to create “distrust” against the judiciary. This was the prime minister's first public comments after the Supreme Court didn't find any evidence of wrong doing by the Bharatiya Janata Party government to trigger a probe in the Rafale deal.

In an all-out attack on the Congress, Modi accused the Congress of aligning with forces which do not want to see India's defense forces becoming strong.

Citing a couplet from the Ramcharit Manas, he said there were some people who only accept lies and share these with other people. “For these very people, the defense ministry, the defense minister, officers of the Indian Air Force, the government of France, are all lies. Now the Supreme Court also appears to be a lie to them,” Modi said in his 50-minute address, nearly 30 minutes of which were devoted to the Rafale deal.

Holding that previous defense deals were tainted, he said a history of the Congress in terms of such deals “belong to (Italian businessman Ottavio) Quattrocchi mama”.

Quattrocchi was one of the alleged middlemen in the Bofors deal inked by the government led by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986.

Referring to the AgustaWestland chopper case, he said, “We have brought one uncle Christian Michel to India a few days back.” The 54-year-old British national is one of the three alleged middlemen being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation over charges of organizing bribes for Indian politicians and bureaucrats to push for the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland chopper deal.

Noting that after the Kargil conflict, there was a need for modern aircraft, the prime minister said, “The Congress ruled the country for ten years, but it did not allow the Air Force to get strengthened. Why? And under whose pressure?”

Accusing the Congress of failing to provide bulletproof jackets to jawans, he said, “In 2009, the Indian Army had demanded 1.86 lakh bullet-proof jackets. But, in the five years of UPA-II, these were not purchased.”

“But, after we came to power, we purchased 50,000 BP jackets in 2016,” he said, adding that this year the order for purchasing 1.86 lakh jackets from a domestic company has been placed.