In an interview with ANI, the Finance Minister questioned the timing of the statement given by former French president Francois Hollande which came days after Rahul Gandhi’s cryptic tweet warning of some “big bunker buster bombs in the next couple of weeks”.
Reacting to the development from the French opposition’s side soon after Gandhi’s remark, Jaitley said that there could be a possible linkage between both the opposition leaders of the countries who were speaking in one voice on the controversial Rafale issue.
Francois Hollande had said on September 21 that the Indian government had proposed the name of Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence Industries for the Rafale deal and Dassault Aviation was given no choice but to partner with Reliance Defence for the offset clause in the Rafale fighter jet deal.
"We did not have a say in that. The Indian government proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us”, he was quoted as saying by the French media.
Jaitley connected this statement by Hollande to Rahul Gandhi’s August 30 tweet, Jaitley said that the two statements may have been 'orchestrated' as they are in perfect rhythm with each other.
“On August 30, why did he (Rahul) tweet "Just wait for a while, some bombs are going to be burst in Paris"? And then what happens is in perfect rhythm with what he predicted," Jaitley said.
When pressed further to clearly state if he is alleging that the Opposition of both France and India were in cahoots with each other, Jaitley added: "I don't know. But I see a perfect coincidence in the rhythm between his tweet on August 30 and what happens when a statement is made which is found to be inaccurate and, therefore, the next day itself, Mr Hollande goes and starts backtracking it."
Rahul Gandhi had on August 30 tweeted: "Globalised corruption. This #Rafaleaircraft really does fly far and fast! It's also going to drop some big bunker buster bombs in the next couple of weeks. Modi Ji please tell Anil, there is a big problem in France."
Days later, Francois Hollande told French Journal Mediapart in an interview that the French side had no role in deciding the Offset partner for Dassault and the name of Reliance was given by the Indian side. Hollande made this statement while defending himself and his partner Julie Gayet over alleged funding by Reliance of the latter's film.
Jaitley responded to this sequence of events, adding: "Yeh jo jugalbandihai, mere paas sabot nahin hai, lekin mann mein prashn khada hota hai." (I don't have evidence to back this but this apparent duet (between Rahul Gandhi and Francois Hollande), does raise a question).
ANI tweeted from its official handle the part of the interview:
However, soon after his statement to Mediapart, Hollande back tracked and went on to tell French agency AFP in Canada that he was unaware whether India had put pressure on Dassault to work with Reliance adding that"only Dassault can comment on this".
Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi basedon Hollande’s statement and called the Prime Minister a "thief" for allegedly favouring Anil Ambani led Reliance Defence in the Rafale deal.
(With inputs from ANI)