lok Sabha’s Ethics Committee headed by BJP veteran leader lK Advani has issued notice to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to explain how he declared himself as British citizen while floating a private limited company in london in 2004. While the Congress blamed the Modi Government and the BJP for “political vendetta”, Rahul said, “We will deal with it.”
“The Ethics Committee has issued a show-cause notice asking him (Rahul Gandhi) how he showed his citizenship as British when he was in london and became a Director...,” BJP leader Arjun Ram Meghwal, one of the committee members, told reporters outside Parliament on Monday.
In a statement, AICC chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that since his birth Rahul Gandhi has been an Indian citizen and never applied for or acquired the citizenship of any other country.
“Gandhi will reply to the notice of complaint of ethical misconduct in conformity with Parliamentary procedure and we shall not comment upon it in the media,” he said, adding, “As for the repeated questions being raised outside Parliament about Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship, particularly by BJP leaders, these are nothing more than the continuing political vendetta of the BJP and its leadership against the Congress leadership. The facts in this matter can easily be verified by the Government of the day. This campaign of the BJP leadership is malafide and defamatory.”
The controversy started in the first week of November after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy released documents of a company called Backops ltd floated in london by Rahul. In the company documents, Rahul declared himself as a British citizen with a london address -- 2 Frognalway. Rahul was Director and Company Secretary of this company. In the incorporation document in 2004, Rahul declared himself as Indian citizen while in the company documents in 2005 and 2006, he declared his citizenship as British.
Moreover from the same london address, Rahul operated an account in Barclays Bank in the name of Raul Vinci. The bank account started in 1994 was wound up in December 2014.
In the first week of January, lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had forwarded to the Ethics Committee the complaint of BJP MP Maheish Girri requesting for “appropriate enquiry” into party colleague Swamy’s allegations that Gandhi had declared himself a British citizen to float a firm in that country.
Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury alleged that the Government was trying to divert attention from the “various crises” being faced by the country. Party leader Digvijaya Singh said that the complaint did not deserve attention. “A person who is born in India and whose grandmother and father have been Prime Ministers of India, can that person be a citizen of some other countryIJ The Ethics Committee should dismiss it,” he said.
However, Swamy said, “These documents are true because they were filed by Rahul Gandhi in his capacity as company secretary and he is certainly responsible for it and his signature is available in the records.”
“The committee had felt that there was a prima facie case to issue a notice, so, they issued a show-cause notice asking him to explain the truth of the documents that have been submitted. Under Article 9 of the Constitution and Article 18 in both ways, no Indian citizen can have any other country’s citizenship. Some countries allow dual citizenship but we don’t, so he loses his citizenship and once he loses the citizenship ultimately he loses the membership from Parliament,” he added.