The Congress on Wednesday alleged that Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has the files related to the Dassault Rafale deal in his bedroom.
At a press conference held on Wednesday, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that a Goa minister revealed that the files related to the deal between India and France for the fighter jets are “in Parrikar’s bedroom”.
“Former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has the all the files relating to Rafale jet deal. The fashion in which every procedure was bypassed…it is all recorded in the files. Those files are with Mr Parrikar. Why are those files being hidden?” said Surjewala on Wednesday.
He also produced an audio recording, which he claimed was between Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Pratapsingh Rane and an unidentified individual, in which two voices can be heard discussing a cabinet meeting and the Rafale deal.
Demanding to know from Prime Minister Narendra Modi whether that was why the government was not allowing an all-party parliamentary inquiry, Surjewala produced the audio recording before the press.
“Modi ji should tell what secrets lie in Parrikar’s bedroom. What corruption or wrongdoing is being shielded by the ‘chowkidar’ and the threat of which hangs on the Goa government?” he asked.
According to the Congress, Rane told the unidentified voice on the other side that Parrikar at a meeting of the Goa cabinet said that no one could remove him as “all the Rafale papers are in my flat, in my bedroom”.
The voice, which the Congress claimed is of Rane, is heard telling the other person, “You can cross-check with somebody you are close to in the cabinet. This is something he said, that means he is holding them to ransom… He said it is in my bedroom here only in my flat, each and every document on Rafale.”
Surjewala’s press conference came just ahead of a discussion on the jet deal in Parliament.
The deal for 36 Rafale jets was signed between India and France when Manohar Parrikar was Union Defence Minister. Demands for his replacement as Goa CM, a charge he assumed in March 2017, have risen ever since he fell severely unwell.
A three-Judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had on 14 December dismissed all the petitions calling for a probe in the Rafale jet deal.
The court said that it does not find substantial matter to interfere with issue of procurement, pricing and offset partner in Rafale jet deal.
“We do not find any material to show that it is commercial favouritism,” said the bench.
Earlier today, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with advocate Prashant Bhushan moved the Supreme Court seeking review of its 14 December verdict dismissing all PILs alleging irregularities in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France.
In their review plea, they alleged that the judgment “relied upon patently incorrect claims made by the government in an unsigned note given in a sealed cover” to the apex court.
They have also sought that the plea be heard in an open court. All three are among the original petitioners in the case.
India has signed an agreement with France to buy 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, costing approximately Rs 58,000-crore (about USD 8 billion), in a fly-away condition for Indian Air Force equipment upgrade.