Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gives a statement in the Lok Sabha today on the orders given by the government to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd which had led to a twitter war with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, yesterday.


Sithraman told the lower house today, "I have received confirmation from HAL that contracts during 2014-18 worth Rs 26,570.80 crore have already been signed with HAL. Orders worth Rs 73,000 Cr approximately are in the pipeline."


A war of words erupted between Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Defence Minister N Sitharaman on Twitter over the latters claim that Narendra Modi government had given contracts worth Rs 1 lakh crores to HAL. In a scathing tweet, Gandhi challenged Sitharaman to submit proofs of the said contracts in the Parliament or to resign from her post.


Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday alleged that defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman "lied" in Parliament that government orders worth Rs 1 lakh crore were provided to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, while demanding that she should either place the documents in support of her statement in the House or resign.Sitharaman hit back at the allegation saying it is a matter of "shame" that the Congress chief was "misleading" the country without fully understanding the issue.

Gandhi's attack came after a media report claimed that "not a single rupee of the said Rs 1 lakh crore has come to the HAL, since not a single order, as claimed, has been signed till now". The media report cited senior HAL management officials in order to back its claim.

"When you tell one lie, you need to keep spinning out more lies, to cover up the first one. In her eagerness to defend the PM's Rafale lie, the RM lied to Parliament," Gandhi tweeted.