Congress president Rahul Gandhi has thrown an open challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to muster enough courage to indulge in a 20-minute long open debate with him on the controversial Rafale deal.

Speaking in Lok Sabha delivering one of his best speeches as on date, Rahul continued his tirade against the BJP-led NDA Govt. at the Centre. He was particularly severe against Modi and said that Modi was being blackmailed by BJP leader and former Union Defence Minister Manoha Parikkar as the latter had in his possession prominent documents relating to the multi-crore Rafale jet deal.

Rahul’s barrage of questions found no instant answers from the Treasury Benches comprising Union Finance Minister Arul Jaitley and Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. “The Supreme Court never said that there was no wrong-doing in the Rafale deal but only said that it won’t take up interrogation into the deal which means that it is the obvious duty of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to conduct a detailed probe into the deal. Such a probe would unearth the truth.

“The probe would reveal only two names: one is Anil Ambani and the other is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The whole world would then come to know of the duo’s joint scam in the deal. I challenge the Prime Minister openly to muster enough courage to indulge in a one-to-one debate with me on Rafale deal. If he is ready, I’m ready at any time for the debate. I’m sure Modi won’t respond to this,” Rahul said sarcastically.