Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of speaking a "lie" about UPA Defence Ministers not having disclosed cost of defence purchases, and demanded the government disclose the price of each Rafale fighter plane.Gandhi, in a tweet in which he addressed Jaitley as "Jaitlie", posted three written answers given by former Defence Minister A.K. Antony in which he gave acquisition cost of 42 Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft, the upgrade cost of Mirage 2000 and acquisition cost of Admiral Gorshkov (now INS Vikramaditya).
"Dear Mr Jaitlie, you said the UPA never released prices of Defence purchases? To nail your lie, here are 3 Parliamentary replies by the UPA with full transparency on pricing. Now do ask our Raksha Mantri to tell India how much each Rafale jet cost," he said. Jaitley had on Thursday slammed the Congress for "manufacturing" corruption charges against the government in questioning the deal to purchase Rafale fighter jets from France.In his reply to the debate on the Budget, he had also said he had with him responses from Defence Ministers of previous United Progressive Alliance governments who had not shared details of armament purchases due to security concerns.