A belligerent Rahul Gandhi appeared to be in a combative mood in the first Session of Parliament after Congress Party’s thumping December victory in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattistarh and posed a barrage of questions to the ruling BJP. He even went to the extent of asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come out of his ‘room’ to reply to the questions posed by him.

“What makes the Prime Miniser to simply sit in his room in Parliament instead of responding to the heated debate on Rafale jet deal,” Rahul thundered in the Lok Sabha yesterday. Taking part in the debate in the Lower House, Rahul also expressed his regret that the AIADMK MPs always made it a point to bail out the Prime Minister and prevent me from speaking on the floor of the House. It’s is indeed painful to note the AIADMK MPs serving as proxy BJP MPs.

“As the Leader of the Opposition, it is my duty to question the Govt. on various issues. I happened to watch a few parts of the prime-minister’s interview; he spoke at length for one-and-a-half hour. His view that nobody could question him on the Rafale deal was totally wrong. The entire country has the right to question the prime-minister in an effort to unearth the truth.

“I don’t know why Modi skips replies to important questions; people want to know the reason. We have 3 queries on the issue: one, the procedural regularities concerning the deal, second about the cost of the deal and third about how the money was paid. We have been asking these questions for a long time now. Why did the Centre urge the company to supply 36 out of 126 aircraft immediately? Was there an urgent demand from the Air Force for such a requirement?

“If so, why not a single aircraft has been delivered to India so far? In my view, all procedural modalities have been neglected right from Day One when the talks commenced and the deal was concluded. Even now, the Prime Minister lies hiding in his room instead of taking part in the debate and responding,” Rahul concluded.