Congress General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh East Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday expressed her displeasure over MHA notice to party president Rahul Gandhi over his citizenship after receiving a complaint from Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy.
“The whole of India knows that Rahul Gandhi is an Indian. People have seen him being born and grow up in India. What is this nonsense?” Priyanka Gandhi said in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, where she is campaigning for her brother.
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The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked Rahul Gandhi to intimate the factual position in the matter within a fortnight.
“I am directed to say that this ministry has received a representation from Dr Subramanian Swamy, in which it has been brought out that a company named Backops Limited was registered in the United Kingdom in the year 2003, with address 51 Southgate Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 9EH and that you were one of the directors and secretary of the said company,” the letter from BC Joshi, Director, Citizenship, in the home ministry read.
The letter further said the complaint mentioned that in the company’s annual returns filed on October 10, 2005, and 31 October 2006, Gandhi’s date of birth has been given as June 19, 1970, and that the Congress president had declared his nationality as British.
In the Dissolution application of the company dated 17/02/2009 too, the letter said, his nationality has been mentioned as British.
The notice comes as a major setback for the Congress president who is contesting from the constituencies of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and Wayanad in Kerala in the Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Sanjay Jha, reacting to the notice, said: “This Is a manifestation of Modi and Amit Shah in panic mode.”
Meanwhile, Home Minister Rajnath Singh played down the Centre’s notice to Gandhi saying that it was part of a “normal process”.
“When a Member of Parliament writes to any ministry, action required on their query is taken. It is not a big development, it is a normal process,” he said.
