Rajat Sharma, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, India TV
On Monday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court expressing "regret" for linking the Supreme Court's April 10 order on petitions seeking review of Rafale verdict to his "chowkidar chor har" campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In his affidavit filed in response to a contempt of court petition by BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi, Rahul Gandhi said, his remarks about the Supreme Court declaring 'chowkidar' as 'chor' were made "in a rhetorical flourish in the heat of the moment". He admitted that he had not read the apex court's order before making these remarks.
It is now clear that Rahul Gandhi had lied about the Supreme Court order and I feel that he also lied in his affidavit when he said that he had not read the court order. The Congress President had said twice, both in Amethi and in his rally in Katihar that the Supreme Court has found the 'chowkidar' to be a 'chor' in the Rafale deal. The ball is now in the apex court which has to decide on his affidavit.
Soon after his affidavit was filed, Rahul raised the 'chowkidar chor har' slogan in his Amethi rally on Monday. The only difference this time was that he did not say the Supreme Court has found the 'chowkidar' to be a 'chor' in the Rafale deal.
Rahul has raised this slogan umpteen number of times, and there is nothing new in this. Till date, he has not showed a single evidence to establish that the Modi government had given Rs 30,000 crore benefit to Anil Ambani in the Rafale deal.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has already stated that Anil Ambani's company was one of the nearly 100 companies who got offset contracts from the makers of Rafale aircraft, Dassault Aviation. The fact remains that Anil Ambani's company got only Rs 852 crore worth offset contract, and not Rs 30,000 crore from Dassault Aviation.
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