Hyderabad: Slamming Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Monday said, “Those who lived amidst the rich and looted the poor for years… whose brother-in-law purchases assets in London, have the temerity to cast aspersions on the Prime Minister.”
Addressing a party meeting at Mahabubnagar as part of BJP’s preparations for the coming Lok Sabha elections, she questioned how those who indulged in corruption and looted the poor to fill the coffers of Congress, could criticise the Prime Minister.
She was referring to Rahul’s brother-in-law Robert Vadra’s alleged acquisition of properties in London.
The Modi-led NDA government has been embroiled in a controversy after it had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets from a French company on April 10, 2015 in Paris.
Opposition Congress accused this deal as the biggest ever corruption scandal in the country and has since slammed the Centre of choosing Reliance Defence over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) as the offset partner to benefit the private firm though it did not have any experience in the aerospace sector. Rahul Gandhi blamed that Modi offered the deal to Ambani to benefit him.