Falsehood of a ‘Clown Prince’ https://t.co/neiTGbgk1G — Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) 1537435654000

Rahul is full time misleader: Amit Shah

(With inputs from PTI)

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday called Congress president Rahul Gandhi a "Clown Prince" and the opposition party hit back to dub the senior BJP leader as a "court jester" in bitter personal attacks over Rafale deal, NPAs and waiving loans of industrialists.Slamming Rahul Gandhi's continuous attack against the government over the Rafale deal, Jaitley said, "His strategy is simple – concoct a lie and repeat it as many times. This, at least, provides him some concocted material for his statements / speeches for otherwise an issueless Congress."Jaitley in a Facebook post titled: Falsehood of a 'Clown Prince', said "in mature democracies those who rely on falsehood are considered unfit for public life.""To each of the Rafale questions raised by me, there has been no reply. In mature democracies those who rely on falsehood are considered unfit for public life. Many have been banished from political activity because they were caught lying. But this rule obviously can’t apply to a dynastic organisation like Congress Party," Jaitley wrote in the Facebook post."If the ‘Rafale concoctions’ were the first big lie, the second one stated repeatedly is that Mr. Modi waived off Rs 2,50,000 crores of fifteen industrialists. Every word of that sentence repeatedly uttered by Rahul Gandhi is false," Jaitley said.Blaming the Congress-led UPA for the NPA crisis, Jaitley said "The truth, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, is that your Government allowed the banks to be looted. The loans were inadequately securitized. Your Government was in complicity. The recoveries are being done by the banks only now. Not a single rupee of any debtor has been waived. The defaulters are losing their companies and assets under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Some are being prosecuted. All these defaulters got their debt in the pre-2014 era. Many got their limits substantially expanded during that period. Though these defaults occurred in the pre-2014 period, the same remained hidden on the pretext of rollover, restructuring and ever-greening.""Post 2014-15, NPAs increased not because more monies were lent but because interest was mounting up on the overdue amounts. Some of the defaulters were given a second restructuring so that the defaults could continue to be hidden. An account is a ‘performing account’ as long as the debt is being serviced by principal / interest being paid. The moment a debtor is unable to service the debt, a default occurs and on expiry of 90 days an account is declared a Non-Performing Asset (NPA). During the UPA, most of these accounts were not declared as NPAs," he said."You lied on the Rafale deal, you lied on the NPAs. Your temperament to concoct facts raises a legitimate question – do people whose natural preference is falsehood deserve to be a part of the public discourse. Public discourse is a serious activity. It is not a laughter challenge. It cannot be reduced to a hug, a wink or repetition of falsehood. The world’s largest democracy must seriously introspect whether public discourse should be allowed to be polluted by the falsehood of a ‘Clown Prince’," the Union minister said.The Congress on its part accused Jaitley of "lying" on the issue of NPAs and dubbed him as a "court jester" writing "wasteful" blogs.Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala accused Jaitley of making desperate attempts at spreading "fake agenda to stay relevant as a court jester" and asked him why he is hiding behind abuse to the opposition and demanded answers from him on the issue of NPAs as well as the Rafale jet fighter deal with France.He said Jaitley and the Modi government have been "trapped" on the Rafale issue and that is why they are resorting to abuse against the opposition instead of replying to questions asked."Arun Jaitley is desperate in his attempt to stay relevant as a ‘Court Jester' to ‘Modi Sultanate'. 'Abuse, diversion' and deception' are the desperate tools of a 'Lying -Jait-LIE'.""Instead of hiding behind the cloak of expletives for the opposition, let FM coherently answer politically relevant issues," Surjewala told reporters.Attacking the government on the issue of NPAs, the Congress leader alleged collusion between NPA's, bank looters and the Modi government."Political amnesia and chest thumping cannot obliterate your dismal record of dismantling India's economic progress or as also the surging NPA's resulting out of ‘bankruptcy of economic vision' of Modi Government," he alleged.