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Why Jaitley calls Rahul 'Clown Prince'
September 20, 2018
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday launched a scathing attack on
Congress president Rahul Gandhi calling him "Clown Prince" and that he
was "lying" about Modi government waiving Rs 2.5 lakh crore of loans of
15 industrialists.
Taking to a Facebook blog to reply to Gandhi's
charges made during his political rallies, Jaitley said not a single
rupee of any debtor has been waived by the BJP government. Loans to the
country's 12 defaulters were given out prior to 2014 and it was only
the present government which was making recoveries, he said, adding that
defaulters are losing their companies and assets as they are being
auctioned to recover dues.
"You lied on the Rafale deal, you lied on
the NPAs. Your temperament to concoct facts raises a legitimate question
-- do people whose natural preference is falsehood deserve to be a part
of the public discourse," he said.
"The world's largest democracy must
seriously introspect whether public discourse should be allowed to be
polluted by the falsehood of a 'Clown Prince'." Gandhi has repeatedly
attacked the Narendra Modi government on the deal to purchase Rafale
fighter jets from France, which he claims is being done at more than
three times the price the previous UPA government had agreed upon.
Also,
he has accused the government of waiving Rs 2.5 lakh crore of loans
defaulted by top industrialists. Countering his charges, Jaitley in the
blog titled - Falsehood of a 'Clown Prince' - said the previous
Congress-led UPA government "concealed" the loans despite default by
rolling them over and NPAs or bad loans were hidden under the carpet.
"The truth, Mr Rahul Gandhi, is that your Government allowed the banks
to be looted. The loans were inadequately securitized. Your Government
was in complicity," he wrote. Jaitley charged Gandhi of "concocting a
lie" and repeating it as many times and went on to cite previous
arguments he had made to counter the charges on Rafale deal.
"In mature
democracies, those who rely on falsehood are considered unfit for
public life. Many have been banished from political activity because
they were caught lying. But this rule obviously can't apply to a
dynastic organisation like Congress party," he said.
"If the 'Rafale
concoctions' were the first big lie, the second one stated repeatedly is
that Mr Modi waived off Rs 2.50 lakh crores of 15 industrialists. Every
word of that sentence repeatedly uttered by Rahul Gandhi is false." -- PTI
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