BJP goes all guns blazing against Congress on Rafale

Seeking to turn the tables on the Congress over the Rafale row, the BJP’s carpet bombing press conferences at 70 locations in the country coincided with three of its MPs giving a privilege notice against Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha.

While senior BJP ministers and leaders fanned out across the country castigating the Congress for “spreading falsehood" over the Rafale issue, three BJP MPs Anurag Thakur, Nishikant Dubey and Sanjay Jaiswal petitioned Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, seeking a privilege motion against the Congress president.

They accused him of misleading the House on Rafale deal during a debate in the Lower House in July on the no-confidence motion against the Modi government.

The privilege notice by BJP MPs over Rahul’s July speech came on a day when the Congress also gave a notice for moving a breach of privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of misleading the Supreme Court on the contentious Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal.

During the BJP carpet bombing exercise, the party sought to “unmask the Congress' conspiracy” and accused it of committing a "sin" by "playing into the hands of those who are playing with the security of the country". Union ministers including Nirmala Sitharaman, Smriti Irani and Prakash Javadekar and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addressed press conferences at different locations.

On the backfoot over Congress’ Rafale attack for quite some time, the BJP has got a shot in the arm after the Supreme Court verdict on Friday, which said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France. Touting it as a "clean chit”, the BJP has gone to the town painting the Congress campaign on Rafale as “anti-national”.