New Delhi: There is a buzz in the media that a very senior officer of a fighter aircraft manufacturing company met five leaders of two Indian political parties to raise the Rafale issue to malign the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government as the European firm wanted the deal to be scrapped. 

“Sales Director of a big company of fighter aircraft met five senior leaders of two different parties to raise the Rafale issue to malign the image of the government and @narendramodi so that both company/weapon dealer & political party is benefited if the deal gets canceled. Please find out,” journalist Vikas Bhadauria tweeted.

He followed up with another tweet quoting sources that the meeting between the company's executives and Indian political leaders had taken place in August last year where Sales Director of the fighter aircraft company and a senior leader who was accompanied by two other leaders. Bhadauria alleged that during the one-hour meeting, both sides discussed raising the Rafale deal as a scam. 

Veteran journalist Kanchan Gupta also tweeted about the issue saying that “a steel tycoon set up the Hamburg meeting (which happened in a third country) between reps of a European defence MNC and Indian politicians? That’s the buzz."

Early this month, MyNation had reported that before raising the Rafale deal controversy, a senior Indian politician had held meetings with American arms manufacturers.