Watch: Rahul Gandhi says ex-French president Francois Hollande has called Modi a 'thief'

Congress President Rahul Gandhi launched a one-line Twitter broadside against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.In his tweet, he wrote: "The sad truth about India's Commander in Thief".

A video from the French online journal Mediapart accompanies the tweet. Mediapart is an independent French online investigative and opinion journal.

In the video, a Mediapart anchor dissects former French president Francois Hollande's recent reply to a question on the Rafale deal.

The anchor quotes Hollande as saying: "We did not have a choice. We did not have a word to say about that subject. The Indian government suggested this service provider and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice. We picked the interlocutor which was selected for us by the Indian government..."

"That's the contrary" (between what the Indian and French government are saying), the anchor adds.

A new Rafale deal was brokered between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hollande in 2015. In the new deal, India was to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France's Dassault Aviation.

The original deal had been brokered between India's previous UPA government and Hollande.

The Congress now alleges that the Modi government has agreed to pay three times the amount the UPA had agreed to pay for every Rafale. The Congress also alleges that — the allegations are spearheaded by Congress President Rahul Gandhi — the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, which was part of the original deal, was in the new deal junked in favour of the private Reliance Defence Ltd owned by Anil Ambani.

Ambani's Reliance Defence has little to no experience in the defence and aerospace manufacturing industries.

Rahul Gandhi alleges Ambani was given a sweetheart deal. (Under India's defence equipment acquisition laws, Dassault has to spend 30% of the money paid to it in India.)

The Indian government has so far been saying Dassault chose Reliance Defence on its own, and that it had no part to play in the choosing.

That explanation however fell flat on its face when former French president Francois Hollande said recently while on a trip to India that the Indian government had chosen Reliance Defence to be part of the deal and not Dassault Aviation.

On Monday, Gandhi followed up his tweet by telling reporters that Hollande has called Modi a "thief" (chor) and that the prime minister (Modi) must explain why this is happening.

An answer from the BJP came from Defence Minister NIrmalaSitharaman, who told ANI: "This is a perception battle. We will fight this battle. We'll go to places and state facts on record on Rafale. Congress designs to run a smear campaign against us at an international level."