Countering the Congress’ allegations, Cabinet Minister and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Rajiv Mehrishi did not see any files on the Rafale deal during his tenure as Secretary (Economic Affairs). Jaitley said the Congress is peddling lies to sustain a “sinking dynast”.

‘Spreading falsehood’

Jaitley wrote in his blog that thousands of crores of public money has been saved in the Rafale deal and a new falsehood is being manufactured on a daily basis.

“The latest is in relation to the present CAG and his participation in the decision-making process of Rafale. In 2014-15, the present CAG was Secretary (Economic Affairs) in the Ministry of Finance. Being the senior-most at one point of time, he was also designated as the Finance Secretary. I say this without fear of contradiction, that no file or paper relating to the Rafale transaction ever reached him, nor was he in any way, directly or indirectly, associated with the decision-making on defence purchases. Expenditure to be incurred on purchases by various departments of the government need the approval of Secretary (Expenditure),” Jaitley said.

He added that in the modern world, dynasties inherently have their limitations.

“Aspirational societies abhor kingdoms. They insist on accountability and performance. But the Grand Old Party of Indian politics has sadly become a captive of a dynasty. Many of its senior leaders lack the courage and moral authority to advise the dynast to change course,” he said.

He said such a trend started in early 1970s, climaxed during the Emergency and has continued ever since. “The ‘slave’ mentality of senior leaders convinces them that they must only sing the song scripted by the dynast. A contrarian opinion will cost them their political career. When the dynast speaks lies, they all join the chorus,” he added.

‘Sinking dynasty’

“How many lies are necessary to be peddled to save a sinking dynasty? The contagion effect of falsehood is fairly large. It appears to have spread to other colleagues in the Mahajhootbandhan ,” he said. “The dynast and his friends have in the past even attacked the Supreme Court when it rejected the writ petition on Rafale. The entire pricing argument was factually wrong. The procedure argument that there was no Defence Acquisition Council, no CCS, no Contract Negotiation Committee was a blatant lie. The ₹30,000-crore favour to a private company is non-existent. The use of sliced document by a newspaper is unprecedented in the history. The use of an incomplete document is certainly not in consonance with the spirit of free speech,” he added.

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