New Delhi: Hours after Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s blasting letter to Congress President Rahul Gandhi allegedly using his courtesy visit to with Parrikar for political gains, Congress chief on Wednesday wrote back to the former Defence Minister issuing a detailed denial.
Rahul Gandhi said that he is ’empathized’ with Parrikar, whose sharp letter criticizing him was written ‘under immense pressure’.
Congress President met the 63-year-old Goa Chief Minister on Tuesday who is suffering from a serious ailment.
I totally empathise with Parrikar Ji’s situation & wish him well. He’s under immense pressure from the PM after our meeting in Goa and needs to demonstrate his loyalty by attacking me.
Attached is the letter I’ve written him. pic.twitter.com/BQ6V6Zid8m
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 30, 2019
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“Parrikar-ji told me that when the deal was changed, the Prime Minister did not get the country’s defence minister on board,” Gandhi said during a public meeting on Wednesday.
Parrikar on Wednesday afternoon wrote to the Congress President, accusing him of lying. The Rafale fighter jet deal, he wrote, had not even come up during their private conversation, Parrikar wrote.
“It is also a fact that you clearly stated to the press that you had no idea about the new deal engineered by the PM. This has been widely reported in all sections of the media,” Gandhi wrote in the letter to Parrikar.
“I understand the immense pressure you are under after our meeting yesterday,” Mr Gandhi wrote. “Pressure that has forced you to take the highly unusual step of demonstrating your loyalty to the PM and his cronies by attacking me in this uncharacteristic manner,” the Congress president added.