For last three days he has consistently been insinuating against late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as of being Brashtachari No 1. After two days of his crafty speeches, he came out with yet another allegation that he had used the naval warship INS Viraat as taxi for his relatives, including the members from his in laws family.

It was interesting to watch that he remembered everything, word by word, about Rajiv using the naval craft. But he did not have any record of the surgical operations that were carried out barely 10 years back by the Manmohan Singh government. Taking help of his memory Modi said “as far as I know the previous UPA government did not launch any surgical strike as claimed by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh”. This is the classical piece of lie. As the prime minister, Modi has all the informations at his command. He could well have asked his secretaries and PMO to scratch the records and get the truth. But he did not do it. Instead he took the help of his memory to cater false information.

Modi has the habit of speaking lies and insulting his opponents. But fortunately for the martyred soul, a day after he accused Rajiv Gandhi of using INS Viraat for his ‘personal holiday trips’, former chief of the Naval Staff Admiral L Ramdas (retd) refuted Modi’s claim and said no ships were specially diverted for the personal use of Gandhi family. On the day the incident happened in December 1987, Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia Gandhi were on board of INS Viraat and enroute Lakshadweep to chair a meeting of the Islands Development Authority from Trivandrum. Only one small helicopter was left at Kavaratti to meet any emergency medical requirements of the PM and his wife.”

The press statement of Ramdas read “I am drawing on written responses from V Admiral Pasricha – then Capt and commanding officer INS Viraat, Admiral Arun Prakash – commanding INS Vindhyagiri, which was accompanying INS Viraat, and Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh – commanding officer of INS Ganga. I am also referring to a note from an officer who was then the Naval Officer in Charge of Lakshadweep islands”.

He also wrote that there is a photograph to confirm this. The statement also said that the then prime minister and his wife went on short trips to some of the islands to meet the locals by helicopter but Rahul never accompanied them. Retired Admiral Ramdas’ statement comes a day after PM Modi, in his election rally in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, had claimed that the Gandhi family used INS Viraat as its ‘personal taxi’ for a holiday when Rajiv Gandhi was at the helm, launching a fresh attack on the late Congress leader days after throwing the ‘bhrashtachari no 1’ barb at him.

Modi had insinuated “Friends, have you ever heard of anyone going on a holiday with his family on a warship? Don’t be surprised at this question. This has happened, in our country. The biggest namdaar family of the Congress had used INS Viraat, the country’s pride, as its personal taxi. INS Viraat was securing the maritime boundaries at the time. But it was sent to fetch the Gandhi family going on vacation… In the list of holidayers were members of his sasuraal. Was the country’s security jeopardised or not?”

A day after Narendra Modi accused the Gandhi family of using INS Viraat for holiday trip Congress alleged that even the Prime Minister uses Indian Air Force jets as his “own taxi”. Party’s ’ chief spokesperson cited a media report mentioning he has made Indian Air Force jet as his own Taxi! “You have paid as low as Rs 744 for using IAF jets for election trips!” Surjewala tweeted. The media report, based on an RTI, said the BJP paid a total of Rs 1.4 crore to the IAF for 240 "non-official domestic trips" made by Modi since the start of his tenure as prime minister till January 2019.

Rajiv has been on the target of Modi in the last few days. He even attacked him over the 1987 Bofors scam and accused him of being Brashtachari No1. It is really surprising how could the prime minister come out with such accusation when the court had exonerated him? His utterance simply underlines that he was resorting to lies only to push Rahul Gandhi to the corner. Nevertheless Rahul must be complemented for showing utter restraint and using decent words in reply to Modi’s crude accusations.

These jibes and indictment against Rajiv Gandhi simply depicts the frustration and nervousness of Modi with the voting trends depicting all is not well with BJP. It is significant that resorted to this nature of lies only after he came to know that ground was slipping. In his desperation to shift the people mood in his favour, he resorted to this tactics. (IPA Service)