Continuing his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi alleged on Thursday that he had “fled his open book Rafale exam” in Parliament and gone to lecture students in Punjab.
“So it seems our PM has fled Parliament & his own open book Rafale exam & is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted.
Prime Minister Modi was in Jalandhar on Thursday for a pre-scheduled programme to inaugurate the Indian Science Congress and also address the students of a private university. However, the Congress chief used Mr. Modi’s absence in Parliament to target him once again over the Rafale deal. His reference to the ‘open book exam’ was to the Rafale debate where the Congress is pressing for a reply from the Prime Minister.
After facing off with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Congress chief had repeated his four questions on the Rafale deal late on Wednesday night. “Here are the exam questions in advance: Q1. Why 36 aircraft, instead of the 126 the IAF needed? Q2. Why 1,600 Cr instead of 560 Cr per aircraft. Q4. Why AA instead of HAL? Will he show up? Or send a proxy?”
In the third question, which the Congress chief referred to as Missing Q3, he asked the Prime Minister to disclose why former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar keeps a Rafale file in his bedroom and what’s in it.
Picking up from where the party president left off, the Congress party also attacked Mr. Modi for not speaking in the Rafale debate in Parliament. “The Prime Minister refuses take the Rafale exam and he is the same Prime Minister who gives us advice on how to take an exam and has authored Exam Warrior,” said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi at the party’s official briefing.
“And since the Finance Minister has become a defensive minister for the government and the Prime Minister… no wonder the RBI report states that bank frauds under this government has gone up by 72 per cent,” said Mr Singhvi.