'Congress cannot work without middlemen'

Hitting out at the Congress over its allegations against the Narendra Modi government on the Rafale deal, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the Congress cannot work without middlemen, and stalled the deal at an advanced stage in 2012 for the same reason.

"Congress compromised on national security by stalling the Rafale deal at an advanced stage just because Robert Vadra's aide Sanjay Bhandari wanted the offset contract. Congress cannot work without middlemen. This is the difference between them and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-government made a government to government deal with France for Rafale, there was no middleman involved," he said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

The Minister further said that the Congress is scared as they know they cannot come back to power, and hence are trying to defame the BJP. However, he added that they cannot cause any harm to the ruling party.

Quoting Prime Minister Modi, Javadekar said, "The more the Congress continues its mud-slinging, the more the Lotus (BJP) will bloom."

Earlier, on September 25, Congress President Rahul Gandhi had accused the Prime Minister of robbing India's youth of employment and the Air Force of their money.

"The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government had given HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) the contract to manufacture 126 Rafale jets. Then Modi Ji became the Prime Minister and buys the jets, originally priced at Rs 526 crore for Rs 1,600 crore. They robbed the youth and the Air Force of employment and money," he said.

The much-debated Rafale deal was signed in 2016 between the Prime Minister Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the French Government for 36 jets after the original UPA deal, to buy 18 off-the-shelf jets and assemble another 108 in India, was scrapped.