EC urged to take action against PM's asset declaration

New Delhi: Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera on Tuesday questioned the prime minister's assets and raised doubts over "alleged irregularities" in the property declared by the Prime Minister himself in an affidavit.

The Congress has urged the Election Commission to take action against Narendra Modi's past affidavit. A delegation of Congress party also submitted a memorandum to EC in this regard. The Congress accused the Prime Minister of furnishing contradictory information regarding his assets in Gandhinagar. According to the party, PM Modi has submitted differing details of the same property in different affidavits.

The Congress allegation came after public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored probe into the "irregularities" in the affidavits submitted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PIL was filed by Maharashtra-based journalist Saket Gokhale.

In his petition, Gokhale has claimed that PM Modi had previously mentioned a plot of land in Gujarat's Gandhinagar that was allocated to the former Gujarat CM by the state government in his 2007 affidavit for the Gujarat Assembly elections.

As per Congress spokesperson, in an election affidavit in 2007, Modi declared that he was the sole owner of Plot 411 in Sector 1, prime property in Gandhinagar.

"Modi listed the area of the plot as 326.22 square metres and the cost of its purchase as Rs 1.3 lakh. Based on the market rates prevailing in Gandhinagar, this plot is presently worth about Rs 1.18 crore. Modi was the then CM of Gujarat and had also declared in his affidavit that he had spent Rs 30,363 to construct on the piece of the same land," Khera told reporters while addressing a Press conference.

However, the property did not find mention in the prime minister's affidavit for the 2012 state elections or the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Instead, PM Modi declared 1/4th ownership of another property in the same area. The former plot of land was missing in PM Modi's 2016 and 2017 asset declarations as well. According to Gokhale, the land records still indicate PM Modi's name.

The petition has been filed under Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression) of the Indian Constitution.