Javadekar targets Gandhi over Rafale

Union minister Prakash Javadekar said Thursday Congress president Rahul Gandhi will end up losing face in his attempt to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, and raked up allegations against his brother-in-law Robert Vadra to target him.

After Gandhi attacked the Modi government in Chitrakoot, Javadekar told reporters that he should first answer how documents related to the Rafale deal being negotiated by the UPA government found their way in the house of a friend, a defence dealer, of Vadra. The deal was scrapped later.

To Gandhi's claim that Anil Ambani's firm was awarded a contract of Rs 30,000-crore, Javadekar said not a single paisa of transaction has taken place so far.

"The Congress is used to involvement of middlemen in deals and cannot accept that an agreement can happen without them. There is no middleman here. It is a government to government agreement," he said of the Rafale fighter aircraft deal.

The Congress seems to have lost its balance, and that is why it is telling lies everyday and repeating them all the time, he said, adding, Rahul Gandhi will end up losing face in his attempt to tarnish the prime minister over the Rafale deal.

The opposition could not find a single charge of corruption against the government in its four and a half years of rule, he said, adding that it has now resorted to levelling baseless charges.