BJP hits out at Congress, says Rahul manufacturing lies on Rafale deal every day

Rahul has alleged that CBI chief was sent on leave since he was keen to probe Rafale deal.

NEW DELHI: The BJP on Thursday hit back at Congress party and accused its chief Rahul Gandhi of "spreading falsehood" over the issue of CBI director Alok Verma and said that he was living in "hallucination".

"Congress has lost all hopes of becoming relevant and it has also lost patience. And therefore in their dreams also they are dreaming only about Rafale. It appears Rahulji is living in hallucination," Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a press conference at the party headquarters. 

"He is manufacturing lies on Rafale every day. Today he came out with two falsehoods. The first falsehood is that the CBI director was removed but the fact is that he was not removed. He has been sent on leave. CBI No 1 (Verma) and No 2 (Special Director Rakesh Asthana) have been sent on leave," he said. 

The second falsehood was that "Verma was sent on leave because he was inquiring about Rafale". "There is no inquiry. There is no case of inquiry on Rafale. He (Gandhi) says that papers were taken from his office. This is utterly fallacious, malicious and a manufactured lie," he said. 

The BJP leader`s remarks came soon after the Rahul Gandhi sharpened his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Verma was "removed in panic" at the midnight because he was going to begin a probe into the controversial Rafale deal that would have been "suicidal" for Modi.

Slamming the Congress, Javadekar said, "Why they are doing this? Because Congress and Gandhi think that he has lost a chance to pocket the heavy commission through his friend Sanjay Bhandari if he was the middleman." 

He said people were more mature than Rahul Gandhi. 

"He (Gandhi) lives in the hallucination. The country has not witnessed such an immature politician. He failed in his two-minute press conference today on the matter, on the manner and on method," the HRD Minister said. 

Javadekar said the Congress president has lost civility and therefore he was "cursing" the Prime Minister day in and day out. 

Accusing the Congress of having misused the CBI when it was in power, Javadekar said, "Who misused the CBI. We never interfered. Actually, people are accusing us now that why we did not interfere in time. There was an anarchy-like situation developing and we should have interfered earlier. But we never interfered." 

He said that even after finding out that a `Look Out` circular, which was being issued to Karti Chidambaram, was leaked and even after the Aircel Maxis deal case report was found in the bedroom of erstwhile Finance Minister P Chidambaram the government had not interfered.

"The coal scam accused had easy access to the then CBI Director (Ranjit Sinha) and the case is in court. Moin Qureshi was the go-between as always. And there are many cases which show tremendous interference when they used, misused and abused the CBI," he added.

Escalating the attack on PM Narendra Modi over Centre's recent action against CBI director, Rahul Gandhi had on Thursday said that the BJP government was ''panic-stricken due to the ongoing probe into the Rafale defence scam.''

''Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed the CBI chief in the middle of the night because he was scared the agency was about to start probing the Rafale fighter jet deal,'' Rahul said while addressing a press conference in the national capital.

''The appointment and removal of the CBI director is done by a committee of three people which includes PM, CJI and the Leader of Opposition. But at 2 AM in the night, the CBI director was removed. This is an insult to the Constitution, an insult to the CJI, an insult to the people of India and is illegal and criminal,'' Rahul said. 

Accusing the PM of indulging in rampant corruption, the Congress chief said, ''PM’s reaction was in a panic. He is scared that he indulged in corruption and he could get caught.''