India's ruling party claims there's an 'international conspiracy' including France's Hollande against Narendra Modi

India’s ruling party is fighting back amid a scandal over a $9bn (£6.8bn) arms deal that saw the prime minister facing calls to resign. Now, Narendra Modi’s BJP party says the allegations are part of an “international conspiracy” to bring him down.

The claims relate to a deal struck by Mr Modi’s government to buy 36 fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation, a manufacturer whose Rafale aircraft rival the likes of Lockheed Martin's F-16 and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Under Indian regulations, foreign arms companies must invest at least 30 per cent of any given contract with an Indian partner to produce some of the goods locally, thereby boosting India’s manufacturing sector and gradually weaning it off imported hardware.

The issue, India’s opposition Congress party alleges, is that Dassault chose for its local partner a company owned by the billionaire industrialist – and friend of Mr Modi – Anil Ambani, instead of a more established manufacturer.

Some allegations of crony capitalism followed, but the scandal erupted on Friday when Francois Hollande, the French president at the time the deal was struck, said the proposal of Ambani’s company came not from Dassault itself but from the Indian government. “We did not have a choice, we took the partner who was given to us,” Mr Hollande told France’s Mediapart.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi jumped on the report, tweeting that “the PM has betrayed India” and further alleging that Mr Modi “personally negotiated and changed the Rafale deal behind closed doors”.

But in a series of press conferences, ministers for Mr Modi’s BJP have hit back, accusing Congress of working with foreign influences to destabilise India.

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman pointed to the fact that three weeks before Mr Hollande’s media interview, Mr Gandhi had tweeted that he expected more revelations to come out relating to the Rafale deal, describing them as “big bunker buster bombs”.

The timing could not possibly be coincidence, Ms Sitharaman told reporters. “There is a certain desperation to make the government blemished on the issue of corruption,” she said.

“Congress designs to run a smear campaign against us. Now you see an international dimension also to it.”

Ms Sitharaman described the row as a perception war, and said that BJP leaders would give speeches and news conferences across the country to place facts on record. “We will fight this battle,” she said.

Smaller parties have also joined the attack on Mr Modi, who is under pressure to shore up his political base ahead of a series of important state elections this year and a national election in spring next year.

Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi chief minister and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, accused Mr Modi of “hiding crucial facts” around the deal and asked if the government was endangering national security.

Nonetheless, the BJP’s fightback focussed on the main opposition leader. Agriculture minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, in his own news conference, said Mr Gandhi was involved in an “international conspiracy” designed to demoralise the Indian Air Force and weaken the country’s defences.

Dassault, for its part, has issued a statement saying the deal was in line with India’s procurement guidelines and that Ambani’s Reliance company represented “Dassault Aviation’s choice”. The French foreign ministry, while not directly contradicting Mr Hollande’s interview, said French industrialists were free to choose the partners they considered the most relevant.

Congress' national spokesman Sanjay Jha said they would call for a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the deal, and organise public protests.

"We will take it to the people's court through protests and demonstrations as what is involved in this massive fraud is the taxpayers money," he said.