A day after France, in response to Rahul Gandhi’s comments in Lok Sabha, said the Rafale deal details were classified, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said the Congress president had concocted his conversation with President Emmanuel Macron.
He said, by doing so, Gandhi had lowered his own credibility.
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“Rahul Gandhi, by concocting a conversation with President Macron, has lowered his own credibility and seriously hurt the image of an Indian politician before the world at large,” Jaitley wrote in a blog.
“One should never misquote a conversation with a Head of Government or a Head of State. You do it once, serious people will be reluctant to speak to you or speak in your presence,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi had met Macron in March during the French president’s visit to the country.
Jaitley also said that it was difficult to understand why the Congress chief was not aware of the fact that a UPA government minister had signed the secrecy pact.
“He (Gandhi) now seeks to embarrass Dr. Manmohan Singh by implicitly insinuating that Dr. Singh was a witness to the conversation being wholly unaware that his own Government had entered into the secrecy pact,” Jaitley wrote.
The Union minister further took a dig at Gandhi saying that the Congress chief was unaware of public issues when he equated declaration of accounts as NPA as a loan waiver.
In his address during the debate on no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi had said the French president had clearly conveyed to him that there was no problem in sharing details relating to the Rafale contrary to what the government has been saying and that the “Defence Minister has clearly spoken an untruth”.
In response, the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs said, “We have noted the statement of Mr. Rahul Gandhi before the Indian Parliament. France and India concluded in 2008 a security agreement, which legally binds the two States to protect the classified information provided by the partner, that could impact security and operational capabilities of the defence equipment of India or France”.
