New Delhi, Sep 20 (NIE): Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in a Facebook note titled: ‘Falsehood of a Clown Prince’, has accused Congress President Rahul Gandhi of leading a falsehood campaign on the Rafale deal and waving loans worth Rs 2,50,000 crores given to 15 industrialists.

“You lied on the Rafale deal, you lied on the NPAs. Your temperament to concoct facts raises a legitimate question – do people whose natural preference is falsehood deserve to be a part of the public discourse.

“Public discourse is a serious activity. It is not a laughter challenge. It cannot be reduced to a hug, a wink or repetition of falsehood. The world’s largest democracy must seriously introspect whether public discourse should be allowed to be polluted by the falsehood of a ‘Clown Prince’,” Jaitley wrote.

On NPAs, Jaitley alleged a bulk of the bad loans were hidden under the carpet by the UPA government and they took no steps to recover them. He credited the NDA government for introducing the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and enabling banks to recover the defaulted loans.

“The banks under UPA took no steps to recover these loans. They did not prosecute a single major debtor who had siphoned off money. It is the NDA Government which through IBC, changed the debtor-creditor relationship and enabled the banks to effectively pursue the recovery. The truth, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, is that your Government allowed the banks to be looted. The loans were inadequately securitized. Your Government was in complicity. The recoveries are being done by the banks only now,” he wrote.

Jaitley also said in mature democracies those who rely on falsehood are considered unfit for public life. “Many have been banished from political activity because they were caught lying. But this rule obviously can’t apply to a dynastic organisation like Congress Party.”