Smriti Irani said, "Rahul Gandhi is into hallucinating conversations."
Smriti Irani has called Rahul Gandhi a "congenital liar", "India's first post-truth politician" and someone with "psychiatric aberrations" in a stinging Facebook post targeting the Congress president over the Manohar Parrikar visit row.
"Unquestionably, he is a congenital liar," Smriti Irani, the Union Textile Minister, wrote in the post that joins multiple BJP attacks on Rahul Gandhi after he claimed Manohar Parrikar had told him he had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal for 36 jets signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015.
Rahul Gandhi made the claims on a day he visited the severely unwell Goa Chief Minister. Mr Parrikar, who was Defence Minister till 2017, wrote to Mr Gandhi on Wednesday accusing him of lying for petty political gain and using the tactic against a person "fighting a life-threatening disease". In his reply, Rahul Gandhi told Mr Parrikar that he had attacked him because of pressure from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The political system is increasingly realizing that it is dangerous to even maintain social contact with him in terms of basic political courtesies," Smriti Irani said in her post, accusing Mr Gandhi of concocting a Rafale conversation and also other conversations in the past.
"Is he India's first post truth politician? From an imaginary Rafale, to a loan waiver scam, he is now into hallucinating conversations. Does he have a mindset of a college-level election contestant or is he a congenital liar," the minister questioned.
"Ordinarily such psychiatric aberrations as hallucinating conversations would rule a person unfit for public life. Persons suffering from them need help and not political rewards."