A day after French President Emmanuel Macron said he was not “in-charge” when the Rafale deal was signed, the Congress on Thursday said Mr. Macron’s statement amounted to a tacit confirmation of the claims made by former French President Francois Hollande.
“For the first time, yesterday, the present French President Mr. Macron while answering a specific question avoided the question; he simply said ‘I was not in-charge at that time’,” senior Congress leader S. Jaipal Reddy, who heads the Congress party’s task force on Rafale, told reporters. “In other words, he did not contradict the version of the former French President Mr. Francois Hollande, who asserted that Anil Ambani‘s company was taken as an offset partner because of the pressure of Government of India,” Mr. Reddy asserted.
‘Non-contradiction’
“The point we would like to highlight is this consistent non-contradiction by the current French authorities which is absolutely tantamount to confirmation on the facts mentioned by the former President… So, this non-contradiction by the current President of France is equivalent to an international revelation, international confirmation,” he added. Mr. Reddy said Prime Minister Narendra Modi finds himself caught between international revelations and internal disclosures, referring to media reports that the government had shunted a senior defence ministry official.
“First objection was on the price. The joint secretary Shri Rajiv Verma pointed out that the price arrived at by the UPA Government for 18 aircraft was cheaper than the one being paid for each of the 36 aircraft…but he had to go on leave,” said Mr. Reddy.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi too referred to it as he took a dig at Mr. Modi on twitter by composing a Hindi poem on the Rafale deal. He alleged that while those who objected to the government’s deal were being penalised, officials who sided with them were rewarded.
‘Signed the note’
A Defence Ministry official, who did not wish to be identified, termed media reports about an official having expressed objections to the deal as “baseless and factually incorrect”.
“The officer had signed the note considered and approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security on 24 August 2016,” the official said.