BJP leaders to target Congress over Rafale deal in 70 cities

BJP protest in Delhi. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra)

Buoyed by the Supreme Court’s dismissal of petitions seeking a probe into the purchase of Rafale fighter jets, the ruling BJP is set to launch a counter-offensive against the Congress. It has decided that its top leaders, including Union ministers and chief ministers, will hold press conferences at 70 places to “expose” the Congress on the matter on Monday.

BJP national media head Anil Baluni on Saturday tweeted that the party, through press conferences at 70 places across the country, will expose the Congress for compromising national security and hatching a conspiracy against the government.

The press conferences will be addressed by Union ministers including Ravi Shankar Prasad in Bhopal, Prakash Javadekar in Hyderabad, Suresh Prabhu in Bengaluru, Nirmala Sitharaman in Mumbai, J P Nadda in Thiruvananthapuram and Dharmendra Pradhan in Varanasi.

EXPLAINED

An aggressive counter-attack on Congress

Among the CMs, Manohar Lal Khattar will address the media in Surat, Trivendra Singh Rawat in Shimla, Biplab Deb in Shillong, Devendra Fadnavis in Ahmedabad and Yogi Adityanath in Guwahati. Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be in Lucknow.

The party’s central officers will address the media — national general secretary Ram Madhav in Chennai, Saroj Pandey in Jabalpur, Bhupender Yadav in Ranchi and Arun Singh in Visakhapatnam.