New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ‘treason’ Tuesday and said that he violated the Official Secrets Act by acting as Anil Ambani’s ‘middleman’ in the Rafale jet contract. He cited an email to claim the businessman was aware of the deal days before India and France signed it.
BJP, however, rejected the charge, saying the email purportedly by an Airbus executive, referred to a helicopter deal and not Rafale.
Gandhi released to the media an email dated March 28, 2015 purportedly written by Airbus executive Nicolas Chamussy to three recipients with the subject line ‘Ambani’. He claimed the email showed Ambani visited then French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s office and mentioned an ‘MoU in preparation and the intention to sign during the PM visit (to France)’.
The Congress president asked how Ambani knew about the deal and mentioned it in the French defence minister’s office when even then foreign secretary S Jaishankar and then defence minister Manohar Parrikar had no information on it.
“This is a breach of the Official Secrets Act. The Prime Minister who is the only other person who knows about the deal has informed Anil Ambani about the deal. The Prime Minister is acting as Anil Ambani’s middleman,” Gandhi alleged and called for a criminal investigation into the matter.
“”This is now treason, nothing less. Mr Narendra Modi is doing what spies do. He is informing somebody of defence matters, he is under oath to protect these secrets. He has now given this secret to Mr Anil Ambani who knows that the biggest defence deal in the world is going to him 10 days before the deal…this itself is criminal, this itself will put the prime minister in jail,” the Congress chief added.
The government and Ambani have repeatedly denied all allegations related to the Rafale deal.
Rebutting Gandhi’s allegations, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said his party had serious differences with former Prime Ministers, who came from the Gandhi family, over several ‘murky’ defence deals signed during their term but had never accused them of treason.
“He (Rahul Gandhi) has thrown muck at his own face by abusing our honest Prime Minister… We will expose his lies before the public,” Prasad asserted.
PTI