New Delhi, Feb. 9: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday sought to put a lid on the allegations of corruption, levelled by the Congress on the Rafale fighter jet deal with France, saying divulging specific details would seriously impinge on the national security.
Replying to the general discussion on this year’s budget in the Lok Sabha, Mr Jaitley dismissed the Congress charges of corruption and its demand for disclosing pricing details. He countered it saying that the opposition party was seeking to “manufacture’ a crisis as it had failed to find anything against the Modi government in the past four years which had provided a clean and corruption-free administration to the country.
Citing written replies given in Parliament by Pranab Mukherjee and A.K. Antony, then Defence Ministers during the UPA regime, Mr. Jaitley said that both of them had stated that giving specific details of defence deals, break up of missile and weapon systems and their pricing would compromise the national security.
