Congress to move privilege motion against Nirmala Sitharaman over Rafale deal

Upping the ante against Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Congress was likely to move a privilege motion against her for allegedly misleading the House on Rafale fighter aircraft deal with France, according to reports.

This came in wake of a privilege motion against Congress president Rahul Gandhi moved by BJP leaders – Anurag Thakur, Nishikant Dubey, Dushyant Singh and Prahlad Joshi – also for “misleading” the House and making false allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sitharaman.

The Congress party, however, was yet to decide whether it will move the privilege motion against the prime minister as well.

Earlier, Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma informed reporters that the Lok Sabha leadership of the main Opposition party will take a call on moving the motion of privilege against Modi and Sitharaman.

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The Congress party has been demanding the Modi government reveal the price of Rafale fighter aircraft but the latter refused to do so even as it earlier agreed to disclose the price.

While the defence minister cited a secrecy clause between India and France reason behind not revealing the price, the Congress president accused her of lying and claimed that he was told by French President Emmanuel Macron that no such pact was stopping the Centre from disclosing the price details of the aircraft.

Soon after Gandhi’s claims, the Government of France came out with a clarification and said that the secrecy pact signed between the countries in 2008 was applicable to the Rafale deal. However, the statement from French government didn’t comment on the claimed conversation between Gandhi and Macron.