New Delhi: The Congress on Friday launched a scathing attack on the government for “deceiving the country” and “promoting crony capitalism” in awarding a private entity the contract for the multi-crore Rafale aircraft deal, which it described as the “mother of all deals”. Congress communications chief Randeep Singh Surjewala alleged that guidelines on defence contracts were violated. He added, “Why are Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister (Nirmala) Sitharaman lying on the issue.” The Congress leader demanded that the Prime Minister and the defence minister answer questions raised by people of the country on the deal.

Mr Surjewala also said that the ‘defence offset contract’ to the private entity is worth Rs 30,000 crore and the lifecycle cost contract is Rs 1,00,000 crore. Adding to this, Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted, “Dear Trolls, I apologise for my earlier tweet in which I stated Mr. 56s friends JV received 4 billion dollars of ‘off set’ contracts. I forgot to add 16 billion USD Rafale lifecycle contract. 20 billion USD is the actual benefit (sic).”

In the last couple of months, the Congress has been alleging that the government went out of its way to give a ‘sweet deal’ to its business friends.

Hitting back, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Sudhanshu Trivedi, speaking to reporters, said, “Congress never allowed defence production in India so that it could strike “deals” with foreign suppliers.