The Congress on Wednesday hit back at the ruling BJP over allegations of Robert Vadra’s links with a fugitive arms dealer by accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of making 100 tours within India and abroad on private chartered planes as Gujarat Chief Minister and asking who paid for them. The party charged the BJP with indulging in ‘politics of vendetta’.
Addressing a joint Press conference with Gujarat ClP leader Arjun Modhwadia, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi charged the Central Government and the Haryana and Rajasthan Governments of indulging in a ‘witch-hunt’ against against party chief Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law.
Singhvi and Modhwadia released a purported list of Modi’s visits abroad and within the country from 2003 to 2007 when he was the Chief Minister and asked who funded those. The two leaders claimed neither the Government nor the BJP paid to private players owning the chartered planes used by Modi.
The details of Modi’s visits were made available in response to an RTI query, they said, adding Rs 16.56 crore was spent on those trips, including Rs 3 crore on visits abroad.
The Congress’ allegations against Modi came in response to attack by the BJP on Vadra and the Congress leadership following a report which claimed fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari paid for plane tickets of Sonia’s son-in-law.
Based on the media report, the BJP fielded Defence and I&B Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani, who attacked the Congress leadership over the issue. The report had claimed Bhandari booked tickets for Vadra’s overseas visit in 2012.
“We are raising a question on who spent this Rs 16.5 crore. We want to know why a private party spends for a person in a constitutional position. What is the motiveIJ” Singhvi said.
Charging the BJP with indulging in “vendetta politics”, Singhvi asked Modi or the BJP to come out with answers to their questions for the “sake of propriety”.
“These trips are clearly trips by a constitutional functionary, position holder. They are provided for by private persons...And we do not have any account. We must have accountability first. We are talking of constitutional propriety as somebody was trying to teach us lessons on constitutional propriety. It is worse than the pot calling the kettle black,” he said.
“No conclusion, but it is lovely to keep the pot boiling, either when the elections are round the corner or when a ‘beta bachao andolan’ is in full speed, to divert, to digress, to confuse and to confound,” Singhvi said, in an obvious reference to a report by a news portal that the turnover of a company of BJP chief Amit Shah’s son Jay rose sharply after the party came to power at the Centre.
He termed as “baseless” the charges levelled against Vadra by Sitharaman based on the media report, which Vadra’s lawyer has already denied. Singhvi accused some in media of “selective” reporting and asked them to introspect.