Former BJP veteran Jaswant Singh’s son Manvendra joined the Congress on Wednesday and made the enigmatic claim that former defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s illness was linked to the Rafale deal.

Responding to a question about the sentiments among BJP leaders about the Rafale controversy, Manvendra said: “I have good relations with Manohar Parrikar. I have the highest regard for him. I can say unki beemari Rafale ke file se hai (his illness is linked to the Rafale files).”

Manvendra offered no explanation for his statement.

Earlier, the Congress had alleged that the BJP was retaining the ailing Parrikar as Goa chief minister because of a fear that he could spill the beans on the Rafale deal.

Parrikar has been battling a pancreatic ailment and has received treatment in the US, at AIIMS in New Delhi and in Goa.

Manvendra made the comments at a media conference where senior Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot, Randeep Surjewala, Sachin Pilot and Avinash Pande welcomed him into the party after his formal induction by party president Rahul Gandhi in the morning.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets during his France tour in April 2015. Parrikar, who was defence minister at that time, was in Goa when the deal was made public. He had later conceded that he was not in the know of the deal and that it was finalised by the Prime Minister.

Parrikar, who never criticised the deal publicly, was sent to Goa as chief minister in 2017 and Nirmala Sitharaman was appointed defence minister when Modi shuffled his cabinet.

Manvendra, whose father held the key portfolios of defence, finance and external affairs in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, is well networked and was a member of Parliament from Rajasthan’s Barmer between 2004 and 2009.

Now an MLA, Manvendra had been unhappy with Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje for quite some time and finally decided to leave the BJP for the Congress.

Another sitting Maharashtra MLA from the BJP, Ashish Deshmukh, also joined the Congress on Thursday.

Congress leader Gehlot said at the media conference: “There is a two-man autocratic rule in the BJP today.

Jaswant Singh, who held key portfolios and was Prime Minister material, was denied a ticket by the BJP in 2014 as part of a conspiracy to finish him.

“(After becoming Rajasthan chief minister) Vasundhara Raje not only insulted him, she made it a prestige issue to defeat him when he contested a Lok Sabha seat as an Independent. Like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant was a victim in the BJP.”

Jaswant was forced out of active politics after he fell seriously ill.

Gehlot and Pilot spoke on how the BJP’s “divisive” politics had angered several communities in Rajasthan.

Ashish, BJP legislator from Nagpur and son of veteran Congress leader Ranjeet Deshmukh, joined the Congress on Wednesday.

The Congress released purported minutes of a meeting between Dassault Aviation’s top official Loik Segalen and trade unions on May 11 last year that purportedly said an agreement with Anil Ambani’s Reliance group was mandatory for the Rafale deal to fructify.

Congress communications chief Surjewala said: “This substantiates the statement made by former (French) President Francois Hollande. The Modi government is caught in a web of lies created by its ministers.”