Rahul Gandhi says probe into ‘stolen’ Rafale deal documents should start from Manohar Parrikar 

Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, on Friday, launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government after attorney general KK Venugopal apparently told the Supreme Court, on Wednesday, that the documents related to the Rafale deal were “stolen” from the defence ministry. Gandhi said the probe into the “stolen” documents should start with the Goa chief minister, Manohar Parrikar, who was the defence minister when the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets were signed between the Narendra Modi government and France’s Dassault Aviation, in 2015.

Venugopal has since taken a U-turn and told media that he said the papers “were photocopied, not stolen”.

Gandhi, while addressing booth-level Congress workers under the banner “Jeet Ki Aur” near Panaji, on Friday, said, “Like the (state) government has disappeared from Goa, the (Rafale) files, too, have disappeared. If you want to inquire then start it from Parrikar.”

Referring to an audio tape purportedly containing a conversation between a Goa minister and an unknown person, which had mention of documents related to the deal, the Congress president said, “Parrikar had told (the Goa) cabinet that Rafale files are with him … (Parrikar said) ‘Narendra Modi cannot remove me from the chief minister’s post. The day he removes me, I will show the files.’ … If files have gone missing then conduct inquiry of Parrikar.”

In the audio tape, which the Congress presented before the media, in January, a voice that sounded like that of Goa minister Vishwajit Rane was heard quoting the Goa chief as saying: “The chief minister made a very interesting statement … that ‘I have all the information of Rafale in my bedroom.’”

Interestingly, in January, Gandhi, after a brief meeting with Parrikar, had said the Goa chief minister had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal. Responding to this, Parrikar wrote an open letter to Gandhi saying that he never discussed the deal with him, and the Congress president was politicizing a personal courtesy visit. Gandhi then responded by saying that he understands the pressure on Parrikar.

Watch Rahul Gandhi’s full speech in Goa here:

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