Rahul Gandhi After Rafale Verdict: "Will Prove PM Helped Anil Ambani"

Hours after the Supreme Court's clean chit to the government on the Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi raised questions about the basis of the court's decision and declared: "Chowkidar chor hai! PM Modi you can hide and run, you won't be saved. The day there is an inquiry it will come out... Narendra Modi, Anil Ambani."

The Congress president also raised questions about the Supreme Court judgement referring to a CAG or Comptroller and Auditor General report on the pricing of the 36 Rafale jets to be purchased from France's Dassault. 

Mr Gandhi said though the court had said that the auditor's report had been examined by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and was in the public domain, no one had seen it, not even senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who heads the PAC.

"The basic foundation of the Supreme Court judgement is the CAG report. PAC chairman has not seen the CAG report. Yet the court has seen it. Where is the CAG report? Show us? Maybe it was shown to the France parliament? Maybe PM Modi has his own PAC in PMO (Prime Minister's office)... since he has destroyed every institution," he sneered.

Referring to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the three states the Congress has wrested from the BJP in recent state polls, Mr Gandhi said: "Farmers remember, your loans will be waived. These thieves took your money. The entire country knows chowkidar chor hai." 

The Supreme Court on Friday morning ruled that there was no reason to doubt the decision-making process behind the Rafale jet deal, clearing the government, which has been repeatedly accused by the Congress of corruption in the Rs 59,000-crore contract. The court rejected a probe and dismissed petitions that had alleged that the government had gone for an overpriced deal to help Anil Ambani's company bag an offset contract with jet-maker Dassault. "There is no evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity," it said.

As the ruling BJP demanded the Congress president's apology, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: "Disrupters have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country." Mr Jaitley rejected the Congress demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal. 

Anil Ambani, whose company is an offset partner for Dassault, issued a statement saying the ruling "conclusively established the complete falsity of wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations". 

Disclaimer: NDTV has been sued for 10,000 crores by Anil Ambani's Reliance Group for its coverage of the Rafale deal.