Rahul Gandhi is not only telling one lie after another about the Rafale deal, but he is also repeating them. Perhaps the party has run out of ideas to generate falsehood, that’s why Rahul Gandhi is recycling the lies, even after they have been proven to be fiction.
Addressing a rally in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday, Rahul Gandhi repeated the lie that the French President told him that there is no secrecy clause in the Rafale deal and Indian PM can disclose the details if he wants to do so.
Govt of India says that since Rafale deal was a secret pact the price can’t be revealed. When French President was here I met him and asked if there is a secret pact on the price? He said no, if PM Modi wants to reveal he can do so: Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Chitrakoot pic.twitter.com/QfdCXtVfA3
— ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2018
Rahul Gandhi had made this claim in Parliament during the debate on the no-confidence motion against NDA government on July 20 this year.
Immediately after Rahul Gandhi’s ‘explosive’ revelation, France had released a statement denying the claim. The French government said that Rafale deal comes under the security agreement signed between India and France in 2008, and sensitive information about the deal can’t be revealed. Thus proving that Rahul Gandhi had, in fact, lied on the floor of the Parliament.
The statement said:
We have noted the statement of Mr Rahul Gandhi before the Indian Parliament. France and India concluded in 2008 a Security agreement, which legally binds the two States to protect the classified information provided by the partner, that could impact security and operational capabilities of the defence equipment of India or France. These provisions naturally apply to the IGA concluded on 23 September 2016 on the acquisition of 36 Rafale aircraft and their weapons. As the President of the French Republic indicated publicly in an interview given to India Today on 9th March 2018, in India and in France, when a deal is very sensitive, we can’t reveal all details.
French President Emmanuel Macron has also confirmed the existence of the confidentiality pact in the defence deals between the countries in an interview given to India Today. He had said that when a deal involves extremely sensitive business interests, it is not desirable to give out details of such a deal. The details of the commercial agreements should not be made known to rival companies as doing so may hamper the interests of the firms and hence, secrecy is justified, Macron has said.
Rahul had also picked up a French media article and targetted PM Modi recently. The article claimed that former president Francois Hollande has stated that the Indian government had pressurised Dassault to choose Anil Ambani’s Reliance defence. Even this claim was rubbished by both France and Dassault Aviation.
