Rahul Gandhi, family partially owned Kingfisher Airlines through proxy: BJP
New Delhi, Sep 13 : The BJP on Thursday alleged that the UPA government gave "sweet deals" to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, while claiming that Congress President Rahul Gandhi's family "partially owned the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines through proxy".
"There are documents that show how the RBI and UPA under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had given sweet deals to Kingfisher Airlines," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sambit Patra told the media.
"And it appears through these chain of documents that Kingfisher Airlines was owned not by Mallya but by the Gandhi family through proxy," he alleged showing the letters written by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to the State Bank of India (SBI) requesting for the restructuring of the loans of Kingfisher Airline
The accuracy of the documents could not be ascertained. There was no immediate response from Rahul Gandhi's office.
The BJP leader's remarks came a day after Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday demanded the resignation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to the statement of Mallya alleging that he met the BJP leader before leaving the country.
Patra also alleged that the party has enough evidence which shows that Rahul Gandhi was "using black money" and the Gandhi family was helping Mallya with sweet deals.
He said that Rahul Gandhi travelled free in Kingfisher Airlines, which was once owned by Mallya.
"Rahul Gandhi took one crore loan from a shell company, we have the confession of the company director Umashankar Gupta," Patra said. The BJP leader also demanded that the Congress President "clear the air over his family's relations" with Mallya.
Mallya, who left India on March 2, 2016, and is facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore and fighting an extradition case, had told reporters in London that he met the finance minister before leaving India and offered to settle with the banks.
However, Jaitley rejected Mallya's claim as factually false.
"My attention has been drawn to a statement made to the media by Vijay Mallya on having met me with an offer of settlement. The statement is factually false in as much as it does not reflect truth," Jaitley had said in a Facebook post.
Earlier in the day, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that all the allegations against Jaitley were "false".
"All these allegations are false. I want to question one thing, all these remarks are being made after Rahul Gandhi's London visit," Prasad said.
"Is there anything common between them (Mallya and Rahul Gandhi)?" the Law Minister asked. He also said that since 1947 till 2008 the banks in the country gave loans to the tune of Rs 18 lakh crore.
"And from 2008 to 2014 it increased to 52 lakh crore. So when Mallya got the maximum loan under which government you all know," Prasad added.
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HC disposes of petition on Rahul Gandhi's Indian citizenship
Lucknow (PTI): The Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench on Monday disposed of a petition questioning Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Indian citizenship and allowed the petitioner to explore other alternative legal remedies.
A bench of Justices AR Masoodi and Rajiv Singh said that as the central government is not able to give any time limit to resolve the petitioner's complaint, there is no justification to keep this petition pending.
The court told petitioner S Vignesh Shishir, a BJP worker from Karnataka, that he is free to adopt other alternative legal remedies.
In the PIL, Sishir had claimed that he has documents and some emails of the British government which prove that Rahul Gandhi is a British citizen, and due to this he is ineligible to contest elections in India and cannot hold the post of a Lok Sabha member.
In the previous hearing on April 21, the court was told that the Centre had written to the UK government seeking details about claims that Gandhi had British citizenship.
After the submission, the bench had granted time to the central government till May 5 to place before it the outcome of a representation moved by the petitioner against the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, seeking cancellation of his 2024 Lok Sabha election over claims that he had British citizenship.
Earlier, the petitioner had told the court that he sent complaints twice to the competent authority regarding Rahul'Gandhi's alleged dual citizenship, but no action was taken by them.
While hearing the PIL on November 25, the court sought information from the central government regarding its decision on the representation of the petitioner.
Deputy Solicitor General SB Pandey had informed the court that acting on the petitioner's representation, the ministry concerned had written to the UK Government seeking details about Gandhi's alleged British citizenship and hence the government needed more time to take a final decision on the petitioner's representation.
