Rafale deal row: Both Congress and Pakistan want to remove PM Modi, says BJP

Under repeated attacks from the Opposition on the Rafale deal controversy, the BJP on Monday sought to draw a parallel between the Congress party and Pakistani leaders saying both want Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed from Indian politics.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the media ahead of Parliaments monsoon session, in New Delhi. PTI Photo

NEW DELHI: Under repeated attacks from the Opposition on the Rafale deal controversy, the BJP on Monday sought to draw a parallel between the Congress party and Pakistani leaders saying both want Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed from Indian politics. Reading out tweets posted by Pakistani leaders, including its Prime Minister Imran Khan and present and former ministers attacking Narendra Modi, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said they have been campaigning for Congress president Rahul Gandhi. "Some people want Gandhi to become a big leader in India. Who are they? They are Pakistani leaders, and also those who stand for corruption, dynasty and politics of appeasement," PTI quoted Patra as saying. He then added that the poor, Dalits, backwards and the common man back Modi, and "nobody can remove him". "What is it that the Congress party and Pakistan have in common? The commonality is that they have frustration with Modi and their only aim is to somehow remove Modi ji from Indian polity," Patra said. Patra accused Gandhi of targeting the Indian Army by using the term surgical strikes mockingly to attack the Modi government. Pakistan has been using his tweets to attack India, he said. The war of words between the opposition parties has intensified after a French media report quoted former French president Francois Hollande as purportedly saying that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault Aviation in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale jet fighter deal. Answer and don't incite, Congress tells BJP The Congress has said that after the BJP was scared after being caught "red-handed" in the "Rafale scam", therefore making such bizzare statements and "remembering" Pakistan. "Whenever the BJP faces charges of a scam, it remembers Pakistan. The Centre should answer the question posed on the Rafale theft and not incite people," Congress media in-charge Randeep Surjewala said. How Pakistan dragged itself into the ongoing Rafale deal controversy India had on Friday called off the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in New York, citing the "brutal" killing of a BSF jawan as well as the release of postal stamps glorifying Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani by Pakistan. Pakistan has alleged the Modi government has cancelled the foreign ministers' level talks with because it wanted to "distract people's attention" from the Rafale deal. In a tweet on Saturday, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Information, Fawad Hussain said: "We reject war mongering by ruling elite of India everyone know Indian Govt strategy is to use hate mongering against Pak basically to bail Pm Modi from call for resignation post French jets Rafael deal and divert attention of Indian public from this mega corruption scandal." 'Rahul using Pakistan's language' Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday said Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, are using the same language to target Modi over the controversial Rafale jet deal.