New Delhi: Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, on Wednesday, mounted a sharp rebuttal to allegations raised by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who had cited recently released US documents linked to infamous financier Jeffrey Epstein during a parliamentary intervention.
Addressing the media within hours of Gandhi’s remarks, Puri categorically rejected the claims, asserting that his limited, strictly professional interactions with Epstein—mentioned only “three or four times” among nearly three million emails released by the US Department of Justice—had no connection whatsoever to the crimes Epstein was later accused of.
‘Entirely professional interactions’
Clarifying the context of the references, Puri said, “My name appears in a limited number of emails that are now in the public domain—nearly three million emails have been released. These references pertain to a period spanning nearly eight years, when I served first as India’s Ambassador to the United Nations and later as a private citizen.”
He further emphasised that there were “at most three or four meetings,” all of which were “entirely professional” and had to do with his association with the International Peace Institute (IPI) and the Independent Commission on Multilateralism, a body constituted to assess whether the United Nations was “fit for purpose” as it approached its 75th anniversary.
“Any attempt to draw a line between these professional engagements and unrelated criminal allegations is not just misleading—it is deliberate misrepresentation,” Puri said.
“Selective distortion” and LinkedIn, Digital India, and other such initiatives
The minister described his principal meeting during that period as not with Epstein but with LinkedIn’s cofounder, Reid Hoffman. “My primary interaction was with Mr Reid Hoffman, whom I invited to India,” he said.
Reminiscing about a meeting held in November 2014, before he joined the government, Puri stated, “Back in November 2014, when I was serving as a private citizen, I met Mr Reid Hoffman. Subsequently, I had written to him expressing my view that India had tremendous potential in internet-based economic activity.”
He noticed that the message emphasised the growth in the number of internet users, the upcoming Digital India initiative, innovation, skill building, and Make in India, all of which were expected to materialise in 2015.
“If today this foresight is selectively quoted or distorted to suggest wrongdoing, then the facts are being twisted beyond recognition,” he argued. Sharp political backlash
Puri’s response evolved into general political commentary that clearly targeted the Congress leadership, though without directly naming Rahul Gandhi. “On the one hand, in broad terms, there are two kinds of leaders in our system. One group takes responsibility, dedicates their lives to the service of the republic, and works tirelessly to transform the country.”
He attributed leadership to this achievement, saying it helped India rise from a position of the 10th to that of the 4th largest economy in the world, noting, “I have no doubt we will soon become the third largest economy in the world.”
Furthermore, he identified another category of leaders who “appear in the country only sporadically, spend substantial time abroad, and when they do come to Parliament, choose to walk out rather than engage in meaningful debate.”
Puri commented on what he described as “the habit of levelling false accusatory allegations” by the opposition. “People are made to raise certain allegations without any accountability and verification.”
He mentioned another controversy that occasioned a “commotion” that a Brazilian model had been recorded voting several times in India. “It only caused a passing curiosity before the truth emerged that the allegations were false.”
On the economy and Gandhi’s comment, Puri said, “It either suggests a lack of understanding of economics or a lack of integrity. The fact of the matter is, this economy grew at 8.2 per cent in the latest quarter, up from 7.8 per cent, and any economy growing at this rate cannot be said to be dead.”
On the point of Gandhi waving the Constitution in Parliament, Puri indicated that even though the photograph has high visual symbolic potential, especially with the presence of plastic wrapping, one needs to remember that symbols alone cannot change history. He pointed to the Emergency in June 1975 as the only time when all civil liberties had been withdrawn and argued that one could not expect to assume high moral ground on issues involving the Constitution without speaking out on this “dark episode” in Indian history.
In his defence against critics, he was quoted as having said, “I am not labelling any person a buffoon. I am pointing to certain elements of buffoonery in political behaviour—actions and statements that trivialise serious national issues and turn public discussion into showmanship rather than real substance.”
Emphasising India’s position in the world economy, Puri pointed out, “The external sector accounts for roughly half of India’s GDP.” In the highly unstable global climate, India has been successful in concluding several trade agreements in an astonishingly short span of time, including developments with the European Union, Puri pointed out. He also referred to the revised growth estimate of India by global agencies such as the IMF, wherein the growth estimate was revised from 6.6 per cent to 7.3 per cent. “India is moving decisively from a $2 trillion economy towards a $4 trillion economy. This transition is the result of our reforms, our stability, and our leadership – not slogans.”
The minister went on to inform that this long campaign of insinuations and outrage may have ensured that he has been given “...at least the opportunity to place all the facts on the table. So everything I have stated is out in the public domain. I have nothing to hide.”
Initially, on January 31, the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated regarding the references to the files filed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in 2017 that it was necessary to give it “utmost contempt as trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal.”
The US Department of Justice released Epstein files by enacting the Epstein Files Transparency Act as a result of public outrage. Documents totalling more than three million pages of files and comprising more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images are to be made public by the US Department of Justice. These files comprise documents that had been withheld to date. Epstein was found to have committed suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, as he was charged with federal charges of sex trafficking just a month before.