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Updated: Nov 14, 2019 16:05 IST

The Congress party and its leader Rahul Gandhi must apologise to the country for their lies against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale deal, the BJP said on Thursday after the Supreme Court rejected petitions to review its clearance to the government in the fighter jet purchase.

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded the apologies after the Supreme Court refused to change its last year’s verdict that dismissed pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into the alleged irregularities in the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale deal with French planemaker Dassault Aviation.

“The Congress party lied, campaigned against our honest Prime Minister and tried to malign India’s reputation abroad. That is why today Rahul Gandhi needs to apologise to the country because the Supreme Court has let him go only after he tendered an apology,” the minister said during a press conference.

Ravi Shankar Prasad was referring to the Supreme Court’s decision to close a contempt case filed against Rahul Gandhi for his remarks that attributed his political slogan over the Rafale deal to the judges of the top court.

A bench of the top court, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul and Justice KM Joseph, said Rahul Gandhi should have been careful with his remarks, which they said were far from true.

It said it was unfortunate that Rahul Gandhi made remarks against the Prime Minister “without any verification”, news agency PTI reported.

“Rahul Gandhi quoted that the Supreme Court had said that PM Modi is a thief. There’s no bigger lie than this, and today, it was proven in the Supreme Court. The SC’s decision today was unanimous,” Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The Union law minister also alleged Rahul Gandhi had lied in Parliament that French President Emmanuel Macron had allowed him to disclose details of the deal.

“Mr Macron said that he hadn’t said anything like that and Mr Gandhi was lying,” he added.

Rahul Gandhi had also said that former French president Francois Hollande had called PM Modi a thief, Ravi Shankar Prasad said. Hollande, he said, clarified and called it a lie out in public.

“Today, the country wants to know what were the forces that stood behind Rahul Gandhi. We can only say that this campaign is completely doubtful,” he said.

“The whole campaign of malign is shrouded in deeply suspicious circumstances. Congress has a chequered history of taking a sub-contract in a defence contract,” he said.

The Congress party had raked up the alleged corruption in the Rafale deal during the campaign for the Lok Sabha election earlier this year. It also focused on the issue in its electoral campaign in the assembly elections of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in December last year.

Before Ravi Shankar Prasad’s press conference, several of his party and cabinet colleagues hailed the Supreme Court’s decision and targeted the Congress party.

They pointed put that the Rafale jet deal was done in a completely transparent manner, keeping in mind national security and the need of the defence forces of the country.

“The allegations made by certain political parties and their leaders in Rafale jet purchase were extremely unfortunate, unwarranted and laced with malicious intent. The verdict has rightly cautioned such politicians to be careful while making wild allegations,” defence minister Rajnath Singh said.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman also called for an apology to the “nation for misleading the people with blatant lies”.

“Chor” comment by Shri. @RahulGandhi of @INCIndia repeated several times over for political gains, brazenly accusing the

@PMOIndia is called out for what it is, irresponsible. He should apologise to the nation for misleading the people with blatant lies, even in the Lok Sabha.

“@INCIndia should introspect for having sailed along even as its leader repeatedly insulted @PMOIndia. #NationalSecurity can’t be compromised for political ambitions. The Armed Forces were demoralised by the brazen allegations against the then Chief of @IAF_MCC by the @INCIndia,” the finance minister tweeted.

“Truth triumphs. Truth can be bothered but not defeated,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.

The top court was hearing a clutch of petitions, including by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, and lawyer Prashant Bhushan. The bench had earlier reserved its verdict on the review petitions on May 10.