Former French President François Hollande contradicted the Indian government's assertion that it had no role in Dassault Aviation choosing Reliance as its partner.
Former French President François Hollande has said that his government had no choice in picking the offset partner and the name of Reliance Defence was given to it by the Indian government, French media reported on Friday.
Julien Bouissou, the South Asia correspondent of French newspaper Le Monde, tweeted excerpts of an interview by Holllande to a news portal in which the former President contradicted the Indian government's assertion that it had no role in Dassault Aviation choosing Reliance as its partner.
"We didn't have a choice. We took the partner that was given to us," Holllande told Mediapart, a French investigative online news portal.
Hollande was President of France from May 2012 to May 2017 and it was during his tenure that the inter-governmental agreement for purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets was signed between Indian and France.
The Defence Ministry, however, reiterated that neither the Government of India nor French Government had any say in the commercial decision.
"The report referring to former French president Mr Hollande's statement that GOI insisted upon a particular firm as offset partner for the Dassault Aviation in Rafale is being verified. It is reiterated that neither GoI nor French Govt had any say in the commercial decision," Defence Spokesperson said on its Twitter account.
The Congress had earlier alleged that the Rafale deal was a saga of multi-crore "conflict of interest" and "quid pro quo".
A report had claimed that two days before then French President Francois Hollande signed the deal with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for delivery of 36 Rafale aircraft in 2016, a company owned by a businessman in India, who received offset contracts of 1 lakh crore in the deal, signed a contract for producing a film with Hollande's partner and actor Julie Gayet.
"On January 24, 2016, Reliance Entertainment and Julie Gayet's firm, Rouge International, got together and announced that they shall jointly produce a French film called Tout La-Haut' which ironically loosely translates in English to All the Top'.
"It is now public knowledge that the head of this group accompanied Shri Narendra Modi to Paris, France, when the 36 Rafale aircraft agreements were signed on April 10, 2015. This All the Top' agreement was a cherry on the cake on the murkier deals involving the entire sage of the Rafale Scam," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi alleged.
In September 2016, Modi Government entered a pact with the French government to purchase 36 new Rafale fighter jets and Reliance Defence was selected by the Dassault Aviation as its offset partner.
Industrialist Anil Ambani has denied the Congress charge that the government had a role in his Reliance group being chosen as an offset supplier and has accused the party of making "false statements".
He has also written to Rahul Gandhi explaining the deal and slapped defamation notices on Congress leaders asking them not to make "false" statements.
(With PTI inputs)
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