Finance minister Jaitley on Saturday claimed that there could have been a linkage between how the opposition parties in India are trying to portray that the Rafale deal is some sort of a scam and the controversial statement made by former French president Hollande.
Commenting about a statement purportedly made by Hollande on September 21 in which he stated that the French side was asked by the Indian government to go with Reliance as an offset partner, he connected it with a tweet by Rahul Gandhi on August 30 warning that, “in the next couple of weeks” and that “some bombs are going to burst in Paris”.
We have got this tweet snapshot from Times of India. We couldn’t find it on Rahul Gandhi’s twitter page. Has he deleted it? Why?
Jaitley further stated that both the statements seemed to be in orchestrated as they are in perfect rhythm with each other. It is clear that it seems as if the Congress had prior knowledge about what was to come and was fully prepared for the same.
Jaitley’s apprehensions do not seem without substance. Not only does Rahul Gandhi’s tweet anticipating what might happen in Paris and his warning of the coming days suggest that he had knowledge of what is going to happen but the subsequent conduct of the entire opposition shows that the entire controversy was a well-planned event. It seems that the Congress and other opposition parties along with their news traders were ready to capitalise on this statement even before it was made.
As soon as Hollande made this statement, Rahul Gandhi and his sycophants took up an aggressive stance. It seemed that they were only waiting for this statement to come and start with their misleading propaganda about the Rafale deal. The Congress president went on to make distasteful and ugly comments about prime minister Modi and went on to allege that the former French president has called him a thief. He further stated, “I want to just tell you that Prime Minister is speechless after taking money from your pockets and placing it in Anil Ambani’s pockets.” This was followed by other pseudo secular factions who tried to push the narrative which has been peddled by the Congress. AAP leader Sanjay Singh went on to state that, “the statement made by former French president Francois Hollande on the Rafale deal is shocking and it proves that the Rafale deal is a big scam.”
As stated by finance minister Jaitley ‘men may state inaccurate facts, circumstances never lie’, it is clear that the statement made by Hollande was fabricated. However, the way the entire cabal went head over heels suggested that there is some sort of foulplay in the entire controversy. Soon after, the Congress and its cronies tried to corner the government, the Congress friendly section of media went hammer and tongs. Lengthy editorials were published in miraculously short span of time and social media trends were planted in a haste. Press conferences were arranged and the entire anti-Modi cartel seemed ready to malign the government with full force. The controversy was indeed very well planned and seemed to be working out well for the Congress and other opposition parties. However, they were in for a rude shock as Hollande went back on his earlier statement and made it clear that he was unaware on India putting pressure for taking Reliance on board the deal. Therefore, the well planned controversy fizzled out in the most abrupt manner for the Congress and others who were trying to malign the government.