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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El Fasher (AP): Some 70 people were killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the chief of the World Health Organisation said on Sunday, part of a series of attacks coming as the African nation's civil war escalated in recent days.

The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, which local officials blamed on the rebel Rapid Support Forces, came as the group has seen apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces under the command of army chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan. That includes Burhan appearing near a burning oil refinery north of Khartoum on Saturday that his forces said they seized from the RSF.

International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide and sanctions targeting Burhan, have not halted the fighting.

In the Saudi hospital attack in El Fasher, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offered the death toll in a post on the social platform X.

Officials and others in the capital of North Darfur province had cited a similar figure Saturday, but Ghebreyesus is the first international source to provide a casualty number. Reporting on Sudan is incredibly difficult given communication challenges and exaggerations by both the RSF and the Sudanese military.

“The appalling attack on Saudi Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, led to 19 injuries and 70 deaths among patients and companions,” Ghebreyesus wrote. “At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care.”

Another health facility in Al Malha also was attacked Saturday, he added.

“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” he wrote. “Above all, Sudan's people need peace. The best medicine is peace.”

Ghebreyesus did not identify who launched the attack, though local officials had blamed the RSF for the assault. 

The RSF and Sudan's military began fighting each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.

Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war.