Read the full media report on Rafale, says Sitharaman

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday sparred on Twitter after the Congress chief demanded her resignation and accused her of “lying” in her reply to the Lok Sabha during the Rafale debate.

Ms. Sitharaman hit back and asked Mr. Gandhi to read the full report that he was quoting while her office tweeted to say that the Congress chief would “have to start from ABCs.”

‘Produce documents’

It all started when Mr. Gandhi tweeted to demand that the Defence Minister either resign on Monday or show the documents to back her claim, made in the Lok Sabha, that the Modi government supported the Bengaluru-based public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with government orders worth ₹1,00,000 crore.

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Mr. Gandhi alleged that the Defence Minister, in her reply to the Lok Sabha, had “lied” about the ₹1,00,000 crore worth of contracts. He cited a media report, quoting senior HAL officials, which claimed “not a single rupee of the said ₹1,00,000 crore has come to HAL, since not a single order, as claimed, has been signed till now.”

“When you tell one lie, you need to keep spinning out more lies, to cover up the first one. In her eagerness to defend the PM’s Rafale lie, the RM lied to Parliament. Tomorrow, RM must place before Parliament documents showing 1 Lakh crore of Govt orders to HAL. Or resign,” Mr. Gandhi wrote. The Defence Minister tweeted that the news report quoted by Mr. Gandhi did not say Ms. Sitharaman had claimed that the orders were signed.

“Please read the complete report to which you (@RahulGandhi) are referring: ‘However, as the LS record shows, Sitharaman did not claim the orders were signed, saying they were in the works’,” Ms. Sitharaman said, tagging the operative part of the news report.

“Dear Shri @RahulGandhi, looks like you really need to start from ABCs. Someone like you who is hell bent on misleading the public will quote an article even before reading it,” Ms. Sitharaman’s office tweeted.

Rough transcript

The official handle of the Defence Minister also tweeted a rough transcript of what she said in Parliament. “It’s a shame that the president of @INCIndia is misleading the nation. HAL has signed contracts worth Rs 26,570.8 Cr (Between 2014 and 2018) and contracts worth Rs 73,000 Cr are in the pipeline. Will @RahulGandhi apologise to the country from the floor of the house?” asked the tweet.

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While the Congress has been accusing the Modi government of denying an opportunity to HAL of becoming an offset contract partner of Dassault Aviation that makes the Rafale fighter jets, Ms Sitharaman charged the Congress of shedding ‘crocodile tears’ since UPA neglected HAL’s development during its regime.

“The Defence Minister will have to make that statement on the floor of Parliament. The fact is that the Defence Minister has been challenged by the HAL themselves and you have a situation where the HAL is unable to pay salaries,” Congress leader Manish Tewari told reporters.