I feel sorry that president of national party like Congress depends only on falsehood: Sitharaman slams Rahul

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his reply in the Supreme Court regretting the remarks made against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the Rafale deal. 

Sitharaman said that the Congress chief's "credibility has taken a beating".

"People in public life generously go on saying untruth and to repeat it is a matter of grief," she said. 

"I feel sorry that the president of a national party like Congress depends only on falsehood," she added. 

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he regrets the remarks made against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the Rafale deal. Gandhi made the submission in a response to a Supreme Court notice on a petition filed by BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi.

In his affidavit, the Congress president said the remark that the Supreme Court has agreed that PM Modi indulged in corruption in Rafale deal was "incorrectly attributed" to the court. Gandhi further said in the affidavit that he had made the statements in the heat of political campaigning which have been misused by his opponents.

"At the outset, there was not the slightest intention to insinuate anything regarding the Supreme Court proceedings in any manner. On April 10, the issues relating to court proceedings, unfortunately, got juxtaposed and mingled with a political slogan being used extensively," the Congress president said in his reply.

The court, in a notice last week, had asked Gandhi to explain his alleged contemptuous remarks on recent the April 10 Rafale verdict. The court had asked the Congress president to reply to the notice by April 22.