New Delhi: Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi today alleged that the Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was lying over the issue of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited or HAL’s capabilities to manufacture Rafale aircraft and sought for her resignation for the lie.

The Congress President attacked the defense minister Ms. Sitharaman over his twitter handle by alleging that the position of now clear as the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has made out her lie.

“The RM (Rafale Minister) tasked with defending corruption has been caught lying again. The former HAL chief, TS Raju, has nailed her lie, that HAL didn’t have the capability to build the RAFALE. Her position is untenable & she must resign,” he tweeted and tagged of a related media report over the issue by former HAL chief’s assertion.

Due to the deal, the Congress has alleged that the government caused a loss of more than Rs. 41,000 crores to the country’s exchequer and put the security of the nation at risk by ignoring the state-run HAL in favour of “some businessman friends” to handover contract in the Rafale deal.

The offset policy of India mandates foreign defense entities to spend not less than 30 percent of the total contract value in India itself through procurement of components locally or setting up of research and development facilities within the country.

Earlier to that, Mr. Sitharaman had earlier told news agencies that it was due to the unprecedented intervention by the former defense minister AK Antony to intervene in the deal to cancel it before the price negotiation committee had to bring the deal to a finalization stage.

Mr. Antony denied the charge by terming it as false.

Apart from that, Mr. Antony was accused by Ms. Sitharaman of not supporting Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to get the Rafale deal.

The Congress party has increased its attacks on the central government over the issue of Rafale deal and is trying to turn it into a major elections issue for the upcoming assembly elections in some of the states that are very crucial in Indian politics and also for the parliamentary elections in 2019.

The Congress party is targeting the central government over a range of issues apart from the Rafale deal. It touched the issue of rising fuel prices and claimed that the government was charging double the rate of actual price. The Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi has promised to bring down the prices of fossil fuel if voted to power at the center.

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