Rafale deal row: Rahul Gandhi's allegations against Modi give more ammo to Pakistan, says BJP's Sambit Patra

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra hit out at Rahul Gandhi on Monday over his allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal against the Narendra Modi government and said that the Congress chief’s comments give ammunition to Pakistan to act and speak against India. Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Patra referred to Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's recent tweet which indirectly referred to Modi as one of the “small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture”. “Dynasts want Rahul Gandhi to come to the forefront. His words over the Rafale deal give ammunition to Pakistan,” said Patra, while alleged that leaders in the neighbouring country were campaigning for Rahul ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. [caption id=“attachment_4424445” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Sambit Patra addressing the media. Twitter/@BJP4India[/caption] Claiming that both Rahul and Pakistan are similar in that they want to remove Modi at any cost, the saffron party spokesperson said, “This thread of commonality between Pakistan and Rahul Gandhi, can it be called a mere coincidence? If you go by what Congress leaders have tweeted and said in the past, it is not a coincidence.” He then went on to present Congress leaders Mani Shankar Aiyar and Ghulam Nabi Azad as examples of those who spoke positively about Pakistan and against the Indian Army. In February this year, Aiyar, who was attending the Karachi Literature Festival, triggered a controversy after he said that received “much more hatred in India” than the love he received in Pakistan. He also added that while there has been a change in mindset across the border, India is still caught in a “partially 1947 situation”. Similarly, in June, a day after BJP snapped ties with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir,  Azad alleged that  anti-terror operations in Kashmir under the BJP government resulted in more civilian deaths than that of militants. “They take action against four terrorists and also kill 20 civilians. Their action is more against civilians than terrorists. For instance, they killed 13 civilians in Pulwama and just one terrorist,” Azad said in an interview. “No civilians were killed during the UPA government.” Taking umbrage to Khan’s tweet, Patra on Monday pulled up Rahul over his “silence” on the remarks directed at the prime minister’s office. “When Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif had called former prime minister Manmohan Singh a ‘dehati aurat’ (woman from a village), Modi ji was the prime ministerial candidate at that time and he responded strongly to it,” said the BJP spokesperson and showed a video clip from 2013, where Modi could be seen condemning Sharif’s words. “Neither Pakistan nor Congress can remove Modi,” asserted Patra.