Bengaluru: Seeking to step up his attack over the Rafale fighter jet deal, Congress President Rahul Gandhi is slated to meet on13 October employees of the HAL, which the party has alleged was overlooked in the offsets contract with French aerospace company Dassault Aviation.
Karnataka unit Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao said Gandhi will talk to the employees of the city-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited about the controversial deal and also address a rally here.
Shri Rahul Gandhi will meet employees of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru on 13 October.
He will be talking about the controversial “#RafaleDeal, and will also address a party workers rally in the city,” Karnataka Pradesh Congress tweeted quoting Rao as saying. The Congress, which has been accusing the government of benefiting the Reliance Defence Ltd of Anil Ambani from the deal, has also been demanding answers on why the state-run aerospace major HAL was not involved in the deal as finalised during the UPA.
The party had been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of snatching jobs of people of Karnataka by taking away the contract from HAL. Gandhi had been saying that had HAL been selected in place of Reliance Defence it could have generated employment to scores of unemployed youth in the state.
The BJP has dismissed all allegations as false. Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafale fighters after holding talks with then French President Francois Hollande on 10 April 2015 in Paris.