Our Defence Minister said she would, but now she won’t. She flip flops between “it’s-not-a-secret” & “it’s-a-BIG-… https://t.co/E8x2AheAKj — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) 1532260294000

NEW DELHI: Undeterred by the rebuttal from France and the Modi government, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday asked party workers to take the ‘ Rafale scam ’ to the grassroots to acquaint them with what he called was prevalent corruption under the BJP regime.At the meeting of the Congress Working Committee, sources said Rahul referred to the debate on the no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha on Friday in which he raised the Rafale issue which triggered a confrontation with the government.He later tweeted, “Our defence minister said she would, but now she won’t. She flip flops between ‘it’s-nota-secret’ and ‘it’s-a-big-secret’. The PM squirms when asked about the price of Rafale and refuses to look me in the eye. Sure smells like a scam.”The renewed push from Rahul shows that Congress is eager to intensify the focus on the Rafale deal, the contradictions from France and the government notwithstanding.The French had government issued a statement that there was a secrecy clause with regard to the Rafale deal contrary to what the Congress chief said in Lok Sabha.In Parliament, Rahul asked why the Centre was not revealing the price of Rafale jets, underlining it had gone up many times from the one negotiated by UPA. He questioned the claim of defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman that a confidentiality pact barred the government from sharing details in public.While Rahul said French President Emmanuel Macron had told him that he could reveal that there was no secrecy bar, France issued a clarification.Two days later, at the CWC meeting, Rahul urged party workers to take the issue of Rafale deal and the alleged business malpractices of BJP chief Amit Shah to the “block level”.Rahul said they were big scams which was the reason PM Narendra Modi could not look him in the eye during the Parliament debate. Congress sources argued the confidentiality pact only barred revelation of strategic details and not the commercial aspect of the deal.“France has to make public the details at its end. This is what the French president said. It already has done so. Why should India be shy?” senior leader Anand Sharma told TOI.According to AICC sources, Congress may soon hold a press conference to mount further pressure on BJP and convey to people that “something was being hidden from the public”.