At a rally in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, PM Modi countering Rahul Gandhi’s incessant allegations on the Rafale deal said, “Your father was termed ‘Mr Clean’ by his courtiers, but his life ended as ‘Bhrashtachari No. 1′ (No. 1 corrupt person)” on Saturday.
He was referring to the Bofors scandal that came to light during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure. Allegedly, Rajiv Gandhi and others received huge kickbacks from the artillery gun deal of the Swedish Defence manufacturer Bofors.
PM Modi had accused Rahul Gandhi of having only one objective of tarnishing his image. “By hurling abuses, you cannot dissolve the 50-long year of Modi’s tapasya (struggle) in dust,” the prime minister said.
“By tarnishing my image and by making me small, these people want to make an unstable and a weak government in the country,” he added. This comes a day before Rahul Gandhi’s constituency of Amethi is going for the polls.
Meanwhile, the Congress leaders have taken offence to PM Modi’s statement and have been outraging on Twitter. Rahul Gandhi jibed at PM Modi by saying “Your Karma awaits you”.
https://twitter.com/RahulGandhi/status/1124912990581452800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“Mr Modi has crossed all limits of propriety and decency by defaming a man (Rajiv Gandhi) who died in 1991,” wrote P. Chidambaram.
Priyanka Vadra had claimed that Rajiv Gandhi had died for the people of Amethi and that PM Modi was insulting the martyrdom of the former Prime Minister.
https://twitter.com/priyankagandhi/status/1124916497065754624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Congress leaders, P. Chidambaram and Randeep Surjewala, attempted to counter PM Modi’s claim by saying that the Supreme court had dismissed CBI’s appeal but failed to mention that the CBI hasn’t been stopped from continuing its investigations. As reported by OpIndia, new information regarding the Bofors scam has left many unanswered questions of the Gandhi families involvement in the scams.