text: Jaitley takes `clown prince' jibe at Rahul Gandhi, counters him over Rafale offset
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  Updated on : Wed 17th October 2018, 12:49 AM
  New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday again called Congress President Rahul Gandhi a "clown prince" and countered him over the Rafale fighter jet deal, saying that Dassault Aviation has said that only three per cent of offset may come to the business house being named by Congress leaders.
  Jaitley also dismissed the charge that he had met absconding scamster Nirav Modi and targeted Gandhi for "building false narratives" on different issues.
  Giving a point-by-point rebuttal to Gandhi's charges against the Modi government, Jaitley wondered if the Congress chief telling "lies" was a "personality issue".
  He also posted a video clip of Gandhi's Monday addresses in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh where the Congress chief alleged that absconding liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi had met Jaitley before fleeing the country.
  Countering the Congress charges relating to a private entity becoming an offset partner in the Rafale deal, Jaitley wrote: "The Rafale aircraft and its weaponry is not being manufactured in India at all, neither by Dassault nor by any private company. All 36 aircraft along with weaponry will arrive in India in a ready-to-fly condition," he said.
  Arun Jaitley said that after the supplies begin, Dassault has to make purchases in India for 50 per cent of the contract value.
  "These supplies to Dassault are to be made by over 120 offset suppliers and the business house named is one of them. Dassault has said that only 3 per cent of offset may come to that business house, which is less than Rs 1,000 crore," Jaitley said in an apparent reference to Reliance Defence.
  "Today, I feel it is much more than hallucination. Is it a personality issue where he lies a dozen times and then in self-delusion believes it to be true or is it a case of a clown prince out-clowning himself," said Jaitley, who in his earlier blog too had called Gandhi a "clown prince".