PANAJI
Former Union Law Minister Ramakant Khalap on Tuesday asked former Union Defence Minister and the current Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to shed some light on the Rafale deal, as he was the Defence Minister at the time the deal was made.
Stating that in February 2014, it was Parrikar himself who had said that the Russian aircraft manufacturer the JSC Sukhoi Company would be a better bet than the French Dassault aircrafts, Khalap asked Parrikar to explain why the government had gone ahead with the Rafale jets deal, though Sukhoi was cheaper.
"We have Delhi, Paris and Goa, a triangle which holds the answer to the mystery," Khalap told media persons at a press conference at the Congress headquarters, while reiterating the Congress' stand that the only solution to unraveling the mystery was to go in for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which would further investigate the deal.
"The ruling party must agree to the constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) and the referral of Rafale to that committee," said Khalap, who insisted that the entire issue was still suspect.
"There's no PAC report, no CAG report, the ruling side have succeeded in misleading the SC," he said while also saying that a mere debate of the issue in Parliament would lead nowhere.
