by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
BJP Moves privilege motion against Rahul on Rafale
Speaker to decide its fate tomorrow
BJP knocks at Ethics committee door too
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Dec 17
The BJP on Monday launched a massive offensive against Congress president Rahul Gandhi by moving a privilege motion against him for misleading the Lok Sabha by “utterly false statement” on the Rafale deal.
The four ruling party MP s moved the 2-page privilege motion against Rahul gandhi for his statement made in the Lok Sabha on July 20, 2018 which was nothing but “figment of imagination, incorrect and utterly false”. The MP s charged Rahul Gandhi of misleading the House and held him guilty of Breach of Privilege of Parliament.
The MP s also filed a separate petition before the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha against Rahul Gandhi saying that his conduct was unbecoming of the MP as he is spreading falsehood in the country despite a clear verdict of the Supreme court on the Rafale deal.
The MP s quoted Rahul Gandhi of saying, “In the Rafale aircraft deal, the UPA government agreed to purchase the aircraft at Rs 520 crores. We do not know what happened and who was spoken to. The Prime Minister went to France but who went with him, the whole country knows. By a magic, the aircraft started costing Rs 1600 crores.”
The MP s said that the above statement is entirely untrue. For reasons of national security, the Government of India has not given out the exact details but has already indicated that the price of the basic aircraft is 9% cheaper and the price of the weaponised aircraft is 20% cheaper compared to the prices being negotiated by the UPA.
The MP s said that this falsehood has been knowingly uttered by him deliberately” and therefore, the motion has been moved.
However, sources say nothing much can be achieved by this motion as the previous privilege motion submitted in the same Rafale deal is still pending with the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
The four BJP Mps are Nishikant Dubey, Anurag Thakur, Dr Sanjay Jaiswal and Prahlad Patel. If the motion is accepted by the Speaker, it will go to privileges committee of the Lo Sabha headed by first term BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi. But the fate of the motion is unlikely to be decided by the House as it will adjourn on January and will meet for the interim budget on January 30 and adjourn sine die on February 15.
Ends
