Clown Prince polluting public discourse with his blatant lies: Arun Jaitley attacks Rahul Gandhi

Sep 20 (AZINS) In a stinging attack on Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on Thursday said that ‘clown prince’ was polluting public discourse with his blatant lies.

In his latest blog, Jaitley said that Gandhi has been lying on key issues. ‘You (Rahul Gandhi) lied on the Rafale deal, you lied on the NPAs. Your temperament to concoct facts raises a legitimate question – do people whose natural preference is falsehood deserve to be a part of the public discourse,’ Jaitley wrote in his blog.

Taking a dig at Gandhi’s wink in Parliament, Jaitley said, ‘public discourse is a serious activity. It is not a laughter challenge. It cannot be reduced to a hug, a wink or repetition of falsehood. The world’s largest democracy must seriously introspect whether public discourse should be allowed to be polluted by the falsehood of a ‘Clown Prince’.’

In his scathing attack against the Congress chief, the finance minister said that Gandhi is leading a ‘campaign of falsehood.’ ‘His strategy is simple – concoct a lie and repeat it as many times. This, at least, provides him some concocted material for his statements / speeches for otherwise an issueless Congress,’ Jaitley wrote.

Apart from taking down Gandhi on issue of Rafale deal, Jaitley slammed Gandhi on the issue of Non Performing Assets or NPAs.

‘If the ‘Rafale concoctions’ were the first big lie, the second one stated repeatedly is that Mr. Modi waived off rupees two lakh fifty thousand crores of fifteen industrialists. Every word of that sentence repeatedly uttered by Rahul Gandhi is false,’ Jaitley wrote.

The blog comes as the Congress tries to corner the Narendra Modi government on Rafale issue. Earlier in the day, the Congress chief said that the remarks of ex-HAL boss nail Niramala Sitharaman’s lies on the combat jet deal.

Sharing a news article, Gandhi had said, " The RM (Rafale Minister) tasked with defending corruption has been caught lying again. The former HAL Chief, TS Raju, has nailed her lie, that HAL didn’t have the capability to build the RAFALE. Her position is untenable & she must resign."

Nirmala Sitharaman while explaining why HAL didn't get the deal for offset had said that the government-run organisation couldn't agree with Dassault on production. She said the HAL was dropped by UPA government and also accused the former government of not taking due care of IAF needs. This got a prompt rebuttal from ex-Defence Minister AK Antony.