Not in favour of FDI in defence: Congress

Congress today said it was not in favour of FDI in defence sector but indicated it won't oppose the government's decision to raise the FDI cap in insurance to 49 %.

"We are not in favour of FDI in defence...We have not taken a decision at any point of time to open up the defence sector," party spokesperson P C Chacko told reporters at the AICC briefing.

Asked about Congress' stand on the government's bid to bring in a bill to raise the FDI cap in insurance, he said that the UPA government wanted to raise the cap and the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram even met Arun Jaitley but could not enlist support for it.

He also reminded that at that time, Narendra Modi had tweeted that the UPA was attempting to sell the country.

"We have lost a valuable one year's time. Congress party believes that foreign investment should come in insurance sector," he said, adding that now the insurance bill could only be passed with the support of the Congress.

"We have a consistent position. We do not resort to double talk or show double standards," he said claiming that the BJP has shown such attitude on each and every issue be it price hike of general commodities, railway price hike and petroleum hike.

On the issue of black money, Chacko said that the Prime Minister should come out with a statement on it as "this was one of their major poll plank during Lok Sabha elections".