New Delhi, Sep 26 (UNI) Under persistent attack from the BJP for his alleged links with arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari and complicity in Rafale deal row, Robert Vadra on Wednesday termed the entire episode as "baseless political witch hunt" and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak out the 'truth'.
"Having all the agencies under their beck and call....no one knows better than the present government and the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last 4 years. Instead they should man up with their 56" chests and tell the nation the truth about the RAFALE deal," Mr Vadra, brother in law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, said in a statement here.
In the run up to the 2014 parliamentary polls, Mr Modi used to bring in '56 inch' jibe to describe the erstwhile Manmohan Singh government as weak.
He hit back at the BJP leaders saying they should not "hide behind a bunch of lies" and maintained that the people of the country "are fed up of hearing them repeat".
The statement put on the micro blogging site Twitter also said: "It used to amaze me (Vadra) in the beginning but it has now become a wholesale farce... the BJP rakes up my name every time they are cornered, whether it's the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or this latest number when they have been totally exposed selling out the nation on Rafale".
The strong rebuttal from Mr Vadra, who is alleged to have benefited during UPA regime, comes after the BJP during last few days have made blistering attack on Mr Vadra for his alleged nexus with Sanjay Bhandari.
The BJP spokesman Sambit Patra on Tuesday had stepped up attack against Congress party for its alleged proximity with 'arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari - an associate of Robert Vadra' - and alleged that even Rafale aircraft deal related papers were recovered from Bhandari by government agencies during raids in 2016.
"After Modi government came to power, we started action against Sanjay Bhandari and his company. Starting as Rs 1 lakh worth company, Offset India Solutions slowly turned big with Robert Vadra's help. There were raids in 18 places across India in 2016 and important papers including on Rafale were recovered," Mr Patra has said.
On Monday, BJP leader and Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat had claimed that because Bhandari's offset company could not earn 'commission' as broker from Dassault Aviation, the Rafale aircraft deal was cancelled during the UPA regime.
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