Congress president Rahul Gandhi has termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a ‘thief’ who had forgotten his duty of ‘guarding’ the nation.

Reacting to the apex Court’s verdict stating that there was no ‘need’ to probe the French Rafale fighter jet deal, Rahul wondered why HAL wasn’t included as one of the parties in the deal to manufacture spare parts. “At whose behest Anil Ambani’s firm was included,” he asked and said the PM was obliged to inform the country about this.

“PM was obviously afraid of facing newsmen as he feared he would be exposed badly. Why the cost of the jets was increased at a latter stage? Only Modi knew what happened in France and after projecting himself as the ‘guardian’ of the nation, Modi had now become a thief,” Rahul thundered in his statement issued yesterday.

“Why the CAG’s report on Rafale deal wasn’t tabled in Parliament,” Rahul sought to know and said he couldn’t understand why Modi was hesitant to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe Rafale fighter jet deal. “Public Accounts Committee of Parliament was also kept in the dark about the deal,” he added.