The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday engaged in a war of words over charges that Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra might have bought a benami property in London. Gandhi came out in Vadra’s defence, dismissing the charges as “false” and termed it as the BJP’s conspiracy in its bid for a “Congress-free” India.
She dared the government to order an impartial inquiry into the matter. She said, “This is a conspiracy for a Congress-free country. What is the meaning of Congress-free India. Everyday they make new excuses. They level false charges. If there is something, then there should be an impartial probe. Everything will become clear.”
Gandhi, who was in her Parliamentary constituency Raebareli, attacked the government over its two-year anniversary celebrations and implied that PM Narendra Modi was behaving like a “Shahanshah (emperor).”
The BJP hit back at Gandhi, saying her defence in Vadra’s case exposed the “farce” that he was merely a private person and mocked her demand for a probe, saying that the grand-old party has earlier dubbed such inquiries as vendetta.
In a related fall-out of the controversy, Congress spokesperson Poona Shehzad Poonawalla wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), demanding a fair probe into the alleged links between BJP leader Siddarth Nath Singh and an alleged arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. According to news reports, Bhandari is said to have facilitated the purchase of the London property for Vadra.
Poonawalla claimed that call data records of Bhandari showed that Singh had made 450 calls to Bhandari “within a short span of time”.
Singh, who faced a barrage of questions from the media on his friendship with Bhandari, said he had no financial dealings with Bhandari “except knowing him socially” and offered to face a probe. He said he knew him for years as their children went to the same school and the relationship and calls were “social” in nature. He dismissed reports that he had made 450 calls. “Not even 100 or 50 calls. Much less than that,” he said, adding that the last call was made two or three months ago. Singh said he did not know Bhandari was an arms dealer till raids were conducted on his properties.
At the AICC briefing, Congress leader Anand Sharma derided Singh’s description of relationship with Bhandari as “social” and attacked the government’s “dirty tricks department” accusing it of selective leaks to damage the party.
Alleging that the PMO was involved in such tactics, Sharma said all this was an attempt to “divert” people’s attention from failures, including a “total collapse” of the economy.
The BJP’s media department in-charge Shrikant Sharma hit back at the major Opposition party, saying, “the Congress chief’s comments have exposed the farce that Vadra is merely a private person. It has established that he is the Gandhi family and Gandhi family is him.”
Party MP Kirit Somaiya said the links between Vadra and Bhandari were nothing but “suspicious”.
The war of words erupted following news reports on the basis of purported papers seized by the IT department during searches carried on the arms dealer’s premises last month. The raids had allegedly led to a trail of emails between Vadra and his assistant on one hand and the dealer’s aide on the other regarding the purchase of a London house for approximately Rs 19 crore, which was subsequently said to have been sold.
Vadra's legal firm has denied that he owned the London property directly or indirectly. It also denied that Vadra had any business ties with the arms dealer or his aide.