New Delhi: Alleging that “Young Indian”, a company in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son — party vice-president Rahul Gandhi — are said to hold majority stake, had borrowed a sum of Rs 1 crore from a firm which was allegedly involved in converting black money into white, the BJP on Thursday claimed it was just the “tip of the iceberg”. The ruling party said “the first family” of Indian politics should provide answers to questions being raised on the issue. The Congress, however, dismissed the allegation, saying the BJP was levelling baseless charges as it sensed imminent defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that around December 2010 a company, “Young Indian”, in which Mrs Gandhi and her son purportedly have 38 per cent shares each, was formed. “If somebody has 76 per cent shares of a company then naturally they have the ownership rights,” Mr Patra said,adding that 24 per cent shares were held by Congress leaders Oscar Fernandes and Motilal Vora.
The BJP claimed that in a meeting held at 10, Janpath on September 23, 2014, a proposal was placed before the board of this firm for a one-year extension to repay the loan taken from a private company.
The BJP spokesperson said that when activities of Dotex Merchandise were looked into by the authorities, the details that emerged were “murky”. Mr Patra claimed that the owner of the company has told income-tax authorities in Kolkata about the activities of his firms, including on converting black money into white.
Waving documents that he claimed revealed details of such conversion, Mr Patra said when the loan was taken by “Young Indian”, the Congress-led UPA was in power and had the machinery to find out the antecedents of the firm.
“This one crore is just the tip of the iceberg. We ask the Congress, whose black money is this? Does this belong to Coalgate, CWG, 2G or jijaji (a reference to Robert Vadra)? The Congress should explain,” Mr Patra said.
He said Mr Gandhi, who keeps doing “political tourism”, should answer questions and not lose his temper while answering real questions at photo ops.
Reacting to the allegations, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the BJP was sensing imminent defeat in Bihar due to the “evaporation” of Mr Modi’s magic and that was why it was resorting to such allegations.
“The BJP is also making such allegations as the names of some BJP leaders are being talked about in connection with some fictitious companies in the Bank of Baroda scam,” he said. The Associate Journal had taken a loan of Rs 1 crore from an R.P. Goenka company at an interest rate of 14 per cent, which was later repaid, he said. Suggesting that there was no case of any wrongdoing, Mr Surjewala said the entire matter was audited by the Income-Tax Department and Registrar of Companies.
