Rahul Gandhi on Thursday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being absent in Parliament a day after the Congress president challenged Modi for a debate in the House on the Rafale jet deal. Gandhi said Modi had “fled Parliament” and was instead lecturing students at a private university in Punjab. Modi was in Jalandhar to inaugurate the 106th Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University.
On Wednesday, Gandhi had tweeted four questions that he would ask Modi the next day in Parliament about alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal. He had called it an “open book exam” and asked if Modi will show up for it.
When the prime minister did not turn up on Thursday, Gandhi tweeted: “So it seems our PM has fled Parliament [and] his own open book Rafale exam [and] is instead lecturing students at Lovely University in Punjab, today. I request the students there to, respectfully, ask him to please answer the 4 questions posed to him by me, yesterday.”
Gandhi’s four questions were related to the number of aircraft purchased as part of India’s deal with France, the per-aircraft cost, the choice of company to fulfil offset obligations in the deal, and an audio clip released by the Congress on Wednesday. The Congress had claimed that the audio clip showed that former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was aware of all the details of the Rafale deal. Parrikar and the minister who was purportedly heard speaking in the clip have claimed it is doctored.
The Congress also put up a photo resembling an examination question paper with “corruption analysis” as the subject, giving the prime minister 24 hours to answer the questions for 1,600 crore marks.
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