‘Repeat offender’: FM Nirmala Sitharaman attacks Rahul Gandhi over Adani row

Responding to a question, the Union minister said, “If Rahul Gandhi really thinks that Adani has been given all these things (undue favours), it is not true. Let me also say he is now becoming a repeat offender in terms of making baseless allegations against the Prime Minister. We saw that prior to the 2019 elections. Now he is doing it again. He does not seem to learn any lesson from all these false allegations that he wants to level against the Prime Minister.”

Sitharaman also sought to know why Rahul did not raise his voice against the “undue favour” extended to Adani by the Kerala government and in a solar power project in Rajasthan. “It was the (earlier) Congress government in Kerala which gave the contract of Vizhinjam port to Adani and it was not on the basis of any tender. What has stopped him from asking the present Kerala government to cancel that order? The entire solar power project has been given to Adani in Rajasthan (Congress-ruled state). What stops Rahul Gandhi,” she asked.

Recalling that Rahul Gandhi had to submit a written apology earlier too, Sitharaman added, “In 2019, while making allegations during Rafale aircraft procurement, you were giving such statements against the Prime Minister that you had to seek an apology in the Supreme Court.”

Asked about PM Modi’s silence over Chinese actions on the north-east border, she said, “We have stopped the Chinese from coming into Arunachal Pradesh. Our action speaks for it. So they (Congress) can go on saying ‘Oh, the Prime Minister doesn’t speak. I want him (Rahul Gandhi) to please check on what their first Prime Minister, our first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, had said. He washed his hands off (north-east).”

Sitharaman also said that the people of Arunachal Pradesh were steadily with India on the ground and all the Chinese had to go away. “If you travel to Arunachal Pradesh and some parts of Assam, people themselves will say,” she added.