ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Monday said the Rafale jets deal was a “Panama” for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Referring to the corruption investigation against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the minister, in an interview with India Today TV, said, “We think that Rafale is [the] Panama of (Indian) Prime Minister Modi. The way his friend Nawaz Sharif is ousted in [the] Panama [case]. I think it’s the same thing that’s going on in India.”
Fawad said Modi was “in serious trouble on [the] Rafale deal,” and that he was trying to “divert the attention of the people of India” from the deal to “external issues”.
“Apni jung khud larro (Fight your own battles). If the BJP and Prime Minister Modi…fought their war inside India, we would have no problem. But the problem is that they are trying to shift their controversy, they are trying to divert the attention by using the name of Pakistan. That is the funniest part, and also I would say, frankly, it shows that for them, politics is more important than the people,” he said.
The Rafale deal is an Indo-French agreement for the procurement of 36 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircrafts (MRCA) jet fighters built by the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation.