Confession of theft of Rafale documents proves scam: Gudur

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy said that the Central Government's revelation in Supreme Court of theft of documents pertaining to Rafale deal has exposed the involvement of Prime Minister Narender Modi in the multi-crore aircraft deal. 

Gudur Narayana Reddy, in a media statement on Thursday, said that it was both strange and shocking that the Defence Ministry could not protect documents of such a big deal and made a confession about their theft before the Supreme Court when it was hearing a petition seeking review of its earlier verdict dismissing pleas seeking a probe into the Rafale purchase deal with France. He sought when did the Ministry of Defence actually learned that the documents were stolen. 

"Two leading publications have exposed how Prime Minister conducted parallel negotiations on Rafale deal. When a newspaper cited a 'Defence Ministry note' of November 2015 showing objection raised by the Ministry of Defence on the parallel negotiations conducted by PMO, the Central Government denied the charges. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman even made a statement in the Lok Sabha on the issue. But she did not mention anything of theft of documents. Now the Central Government is threatening to register cases against two publications under Official Secrets Act for publishing those reports. This is nothing but an attempt to suppress the facts and hush up the scam," Gudur Narayana Reddy said. 

The Congress leader said if the Central Government's confession of theft of Rafale documents is true, then the reports on parallel negotiation conducted by PMO were also true. Therefore, if the government was mooting registration of cases under Official Secrets Act against the two publications then a case should also be registered against Narender Modi and all others who are involved in the scam. 

Gudur Narayana Reddy said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi has already reiterated the demand for a Joint Parliamentary probe into the Rafale deal and the Prime Minister must accept it if he was clean.