Rahul fires salvoes on noteban, Rafale

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched twin-attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the note-ban was a "huge scam" to help his "crony capitalist" friends and questioned his "deal" with industrialist Anil Ambani on the Rafale fighter jet contract.

"Noteban is nothing less than a huge scam," Rahul told a press conference here pointing out that the RBI annual report published on Wednesday had stated that almost an equivalent amount of demonetised currency had returned to the banking system.

Armed with the RBI revelations on noteban, Rahul accused him of implementing demonetisation only to help crony capitalists to turn their black money into white.

“There is evidence coming out...slowly-slowly the evidence you are talking about is coming out and more and more will come out,” the Congress president said referring to the deposits to the tune of Rs 700 crore in the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank soon after the noteban. BJP President Amit Shah is one of the directors of the bank.

"They can slap as many defamation suits they like, but that is not going to change the truth. The truth is that Narendra Modi implemented note-ban to help 15-20 crony capitalist and struck the Rafale deal to help his friend,” Rahul said.

Rahul also rejected Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's contention that the aim of demonetisation was formalisation of the economy. “The intention was to help the richest people, the most corrupt people in this land to change their money from black to white. That was the intention,” the Congress President said.

Stepping up attack on the Rafale deal, Rahul asked the Prime Minister Narendra why an aircraft costing around Rs 520 crore was bought at Rs 1,600 crore.

“Who were you (Modi) trying to benefit,” Rahul asked at a press conference.

He also attacked Jaitley, saying the Finance Minister was busy blogging but had remained silent on the Congress demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation in the Rafale deal.