New Delhi, Sep 20 (UNI) Lashing out at Congress President Rahul Gandhi for ‘concocting the falsehood ‘on Rafale Jet deal and Non Performing Assets (NPAs), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday accused that Mr Gandhi is ‘lying’ and described him as ‘Clown Prince’.
Targeting Mr Gandhi, the Finance Minister said in long Facebook post that “the world’s largest democracy must seriously introspect whether public discourse should be allowed to be polluted by the falsehood of a ‘Clown Prince’.”
“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”, Mr Jaitley said.
Mr Jaitley’s post is a response to Congress President continuously attacking the Modi government over the 36 French Rafale jet deal and alleging that the prices of aircraft has been increased many folds than what the UPA government had negotiated.
“Today the UPA leaders falsely stated that when they went out of Government, the Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) were only Rs. 2.5 lakh crore. In 2015, an asset quality review was conducted by the Reserve Bank of India and it was found that the NPAs were actually Rs. 8.96 lakh crore”, Mr Jaitley said.
Furthering the attack on Mr Gandhi, the Finance Minister said that “the campaign of falsehood on Rafale entirely led by the Congress President exposes his strategy i.e. concoct a lie and repeat as many times”.
“This, at least, provides him some concocted material for his statements / speeches for otherwise an issueless Congress”, he mocked.
In an apparent snub, Mr Jaitley went on to say, “in mature democracies those who rely on falsehood are considered unfit for public life. Many have been banished from political activity for lying”.

“But this rule obviously can’t apply to a dynastic party like Congress”, he added.
In the post titled on “Clown Prince”, Mr Jaitley alleged that the Congress president lied on Rafale deal and NPAs and his “temperament to concoct facts raises a legitimate question – do people whose natural preference is falsehood deserve to be a part of the public discourse”.
“The world’s largest democracy must seriously introspect whether public discourse should be allowed to be polluted by the falsehood of a ‘Clown Prince’”, he added.
Countering Congress president’s allegations, Mr Jaitley said that under UPA government loans were concealed despite the default and kept rolling over the loans and added that “they did not prosecute a single major debtor who had siphoned off money”.
“ It is the NDA Government which through Insolvencey and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), changed the debtor-creditor relationship and enabled the banks to effectively pursue the recovery.”, he added.
The Finance Minister further alleged that the UPA Government allowed the banks to be looted and the loans were inadequately securitized.
“Your Government was in complicity. The recoveries are being done by the banks only now. By repeating a lie on several occasions, you can’t change that reality. Not a single rupee of any debtor has been waived. The defaulters are losing their companies and assets under the IBC”, he said.
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