{"id":303086,"date":"2018-09-22T05:24:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-22T05:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=303086"},"modified":"2018-09-22T05:24:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T05:24:13","slug":"rafale-deal-dassault-aviation-clarifies-after-hollande-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rafale-deal-dassault-aviation-clarifies-after-hollande-remarks\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafale Deal: Dassault Aviation clarifies after Hollande remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a recent development, French defence manufacturing giant Dassault Aviation has refuted the claims made by former French President Francois Hollande and said that it was Dassault who selected Ambani’s Reliance Defence and not the Indian government.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, the controversy over\u00a0Rafale\u00a0fighter jet deal took a new twist following former French\u00a0President\u00a0Francois Hollande’s reported claim that the\u00a0Indian government\u00a0recommended Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the Defence Ministry continued to maintain that neither the government of\u00a0India\u00a0nor\u00a0French government\u00a0had any say in the commercial decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dassault Aviation, the makers of Rafale, had chosen Reliance Defence as its partner to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. However, Modi government said earlier it did not have any role in selection of the offset partner.<\/span><\/p>\n

The French media report quoted Hollande as saying \u201cwe did not have a say in this…the Indian government proposed this service group and Dassault negotiated with Ambani group. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Congress and other Opposition parties slammed the Modi government for hiding fact on the deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Congress President Rahul Gandhi thanked Fran\u00e7ois Hollande for disclosing the facts and said, \u201cThe PM personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors. Thanks to Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, we now know he personally delivered a deal worth billions of dollars to a bankrupt Anil Ambani. The PM has betrayed India. He has dishonoured the blood of our soldiers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram tweeted, \u201cIn the NDA negotiated Rafale aircraft deal, we have got no aircraft, we have got only lies. What is the new lie that the government will put out in response to Mr Hollande?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, \u201cBy hiding crucial facts on Rafale deal, is Modi govt not endangering national security? Former French President’s statement directly contradicts what Modi govt had been saying so far. Can the country be taken for a ride any further?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

“Prime Minister, speak the truth. The nation wants to know the truth, whole truth. Every day, government of India’s statements are being proven untrue. People have started suspecting by now that something is not right (in Rafale deal), else why would the government lie day after day,” Kejriwal added.<\/span><\/p>\n

The deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from\u00a0France\u00a0was announced by Narendra Modi in 2015 and signed in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Modi government has repeatedly said it was\u00a0Dassault\u00a0that chose its India\u00a0partner\u00a0for offsets and that the government had no say in the deal.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent development, French defence manufacturing giant Dassault Aviation has refuted the claims made by former French President Francois Hollande and said that it was Dassault who selected Ambani’s Reliance Defence and not the Indian government. On Friday, the controversy over\u00a0Rafale\u00a0fighter jet deal took a new twist following former French\u00a0President\u00a0Francois Hollande’s reported claim that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":301573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[5185,1776,5186,574,4322,4758],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303087,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303086\/revisions\/303087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/301573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}