Sharpening his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused him of having prepared the new contract for purchase of fighter jets from France, sidelining the official negotiating team in order to benefit Anil Ambani.

The Congress chief claimed that Defence Ministry documents published in an English daily showed “Modi prepared a new contract ignoring the negotiating team. Modi’s aim was to hand over Rs 30,000 crore to Ambani”.

The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group has persistently rejected Congress’s claim and said the central government had nothing to do with the company bagging the offset contract from Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of the Rafale jets.

Referring to HAL’s unit in Odisha near here, Gandhi said engines of MiG and Sukhoi fighters were made at the plant in Sunabeda. The country’s youth, mainly in Odisha, played a role in its defence through the unit.

Accusing the Prime Minister of neglecting farmers, the Congress chief said PM-KISAN scheme launched by the BJP-led government is nothing but an attempt to make a “mockery” of poor farmers by doling out a paltry sum of Rs 6,000 annually.

The Congress, on the other hand, waived farm loans and raised MSP for paddy to Rs 2,500 per quintal in states where it came to power after the recent elections.

He also promised loan waiver for farmers and a hike in MSP for paddy to Rs 2,500 from Rs 1,600 per quintal in Odisha within 10 days if the Congress forms its government after the upcoming election.

While HAL has no pending loans, Ambani owes his lenders a debt of Rs 45,000 crore, Gandhi said, adding the previous UPA government had decided to award the contract for manufacturing Rafale to the state-owned aerospace and defence major.

Each of the 126 jets proposed to be acquired was to cost Rs 526 crore, but the price was escalated to Rs 1,600 crore apiece to benefit Ambani, the Congress chief alleged.The Prime Minister, he claimed, had even told France that if Rafale jets were to be purchased, the contract should go to Ambani and that HAL should not have any role.

The Congress president also lashed out at the Centre for trying to amend the Land Acquisition Act so it could easily snatch away the land of tribals and farmers, and hand them over to industrialists. However, the Congress foiled the “evil design” at least thrice as it believes that no tribal land should be acquired without the consent of its owners, he said.

Insisting that tribal land acquired for setting up industries must be returned if no unit is established within four years, he said land parcels in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district were returned by the Congress dispensation on this ground.

The Congress leader accused the Prime Minister of having misled people by giving “false” information on several issues, including unemployment figures, farmers problems, Swachh Bharat scheme and women’s safety.

“The number of lies that Modi has told the country is more than the lies told by all previous prime ministers put together,” Gandhi said, blaming the Centre’s policies for alleged growing unemployment and crimes against women.