RAFALE DEAL
a big business opportunity. They were
not a contender for the offsets but for the
manufacture.
However, it would be incorrect to
suggest that HAL was completely by-
passed in offset partner deals for the 36
Rafales. Snecma HAL Aerospace Pvt
Ltd (SHAe), a JV between HAL and the
French manufacturer of the Rafale’s
M88 jet engine, was signed in February
2015 in Bengaluru. The 50:50 JV was
set up for the production of engine parts
and components of the M88 engine and
to facilitate their assembly. This JV will
hence be eligible for offsets discharged
by Safran in the Rafale deal.
WHY DID RELIANCE ENTERTAIN-
MENT FUND JULIE GAYET’S FILM?
On January 24, 2016, just two days be-
fore Hollande was to visit New
Delhi as a state guest for the
Republic Day Parade, Reli-
ance Entertainment circulated
a press release headlined ‘Reli-
ance Entertainment, Serge Ha-
zanavicius, Kev Adams, Julie
Gayet and Elisa Soussan join
hands for unique Indo-French
production nOmber One’. Gay-
et, an actor-producer, was also
Hollande’s partner, and their li-
aison was the subject of consid-
erable tabloid gossip in Paris in
- The fact that the film was
being financed by an industri-
alist who stood to gain from
the Rafale deal, even if it was
as an offset partner, is what
Mediapart caught on to in its
September 21 story. The film
was released in France as To u t l a - h a u t
in December 2017. Mediapart quoted a
member of the film’s production team
to suggest that had Reliance Entertain-
ment not thrown in a financial lifeline—3
million euros, later reduced to 1.6 million
euros—the biopic of a young snowboard-
er who died on Mount Everest in 2002
would not have been possible. “One day,
the Indians arrived and the film could be
done,” the person said. It was this charge
of crony capitalism —which provoked a
response from Hollande.
“We did not have any say in this mat-
ter. It is the Indian government which
proposed this group and Dassault who
negotiated with Ambani. We did not
have a choice, we took the interlocutor
who was given to us. This is why, in ad-
dition, this group had no reason to make
me any grace of any kind. I could not
even imagine that there was any link
with a film of Julie Gayet.”
Gayet’s production house Rouge In-
ternational, in a communication to the
India Today Group, denied knowing or
meeting A nil A mbani or Reliance repre-
sentatives. Likewise, a Reliance spokes-
person denied having signed any agree-
ment with Gayet or Rouge International.
“No payment has ever been made by Re-
liance Entertainment to either of them
in relation to the film, nOmber One,” hesaid. Reliance Entertainment had paid
1.48 million euros to Visvires Capital on
December 5, 2017, about two weeks be-
fore the release of the film on December
20, 2017. Hollande had ceased to hold
office in May 2017, more than six months
prior to the said payment, the spokesper-
son added. The relationship with Visvi-
res Capital resulted in two other French
movie JVs. There was no quid pro quo for
the Rafale offsets. “This was part of its
normal business for Reliance Entertain-
ment,” said the spokesperson.WILL RAFALE FLY AS A POLL ISSUE?
“Gali gali mein shor hai , desh ka chowki-
dar chor hai (the word in the streets is
the nation’s watchman is a thief ),” Con-
gress president Rahul Gandhi said at a
September 20 political rally in Sargara,
Rajasthan. The slogan, directed at PM
Modi who captured power in 2014 calling
himself a ‘chowkidar’—was a modified
version of the one used by the opposition
to target Rahul’s father in 1988 at the
height of the Bofors scandal. The Con-
gress hopes it can pin the new controversy
on Modi, even though, unlike Bofors,
there is no smoking gun, no middlemen
and no Swiss bank accounts. With the
battle lines drawn for the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections, it has increasingly become clear
that the sleek French fighter aircraft will
be the Congress party’s main poll plank
to target the BJP even though
a recent INDIA TODAY survey
which polled 30,000 voters in
80 Lok Sabha constituencies in
Uttar Pradesh, a key electoral
state, showed that only 21 per
cent respondents had heard of
the Rafale deal. But as the po-
litical slugfest intensifies in the
run-up to the 2019 elections,
no one can say with certainty
how the controversy will play
out, par ticularly as a bitter no-
holds-barred perception war is
fought in the public gaze, in the
media and social media.
The BJP’s media machine
is confident that Rahul has
made a strategic error in call-
ing Modi a thief because the
tag won’t stick and would, in
fact, help the PM once he picks up the
gauntlet. Anil Ambani, meanwhile, has
been left to defend himself. In 2006,
he had resigned from the Rajya Sabha
“to avoid any possibility of controversy,
however remote or unlikely” when rum-
blings over his holding an of f ice of prof it
in the UP government began. This time
round, he possibly finds himself in the
slipstream of a controversy without an
eject lever in sight. ■
with Nevin John, M.G. Arun and
Uday Mahurkar“WE DID NOT HAVE ANY SAY IN THIS
MATTER. IT IS THE INDIAN GOVERN-
MENT WHICH PROPOSED THIS GROUP
AND DASSAULT WHO NEGOTIATED
WITH AMBANI. WE DID NOT HAVE A
CHOICE, WE TOOK THE INTERLOCU-
TOR WHO WAS GIVEN TO US. THIS IS
WHY, IN ADDITION, THIS GROUP HAD
NO REASON TO MAKE ME ANY GRACE
OF ANY KIND. I COULD NOT EVEN
IMAGINE THAT THERE WAS ANY LINK
WITH A FILM OF JULIE GAYET”SEPT. 21, 2018: FRANCOIS HOLLANDE
quoted in a report in Mediapart