New Delhi: In a move which may stir up a hornet’s nest during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, the Home Ministry has served a notice to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, asking him to clarify within a fortnight his ‘factual position’ on a complaint questioning his citizenship status.
The notice was served following a representation from BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy. Citing Swamy’s letter, the Home Ministry said it has been brought out that a company named ‘Backops Limited’ was registered in the United Kingdom in 2003 with Rahul as one of its directors.
As a row erupted Tuesday on the notice to the Congress chief, Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Lucknow said it is a normal process and ‘not a big development’.
Swamy’s letter also mentioned that in the British company’s annual returns filed October 10, 2005, and October 31, 2006, Rahul’s date of birth has been given as June 19, 1970, and he had declared his nationality as British, the ministry said.
“Further, in the dissolution application dated February 17, 2009, of the above referred company your nationality has been mentioned as British. You are requested to intimate the factual position in the matter to this ministry within a fortnight of the receipt of this communication,” the notice issued by the Home Ministry said.
It should be mentioned here that in 2016, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had forwarded to the Parliamentary Ethics Committee, headed by veteran BJP leader LK Advani, Swamy’s ‘complaint of ethical misconduct’ against Rahul that he had accessed documents in which the Congress leader had called himself, ‘British’.
In his reply to the Ethics Committee on the allegations of British citizenship, Rahul had said he had never ‘sought or acquired British citizenship’ and that his ‘identity is that of an Indian’.
Catching on this development, the BJP described Rahul as a ‘man of mysteries’ and questioned the Congress president over the Home Ministry’s notice on his citizenship status asking which is real – ‘Rahul Gandhi London wale or Lutyens wale’.
Attacking the Congress president, the BJP said the entire Rahul’s citizenship saga is a story of three Cs – citizenship, confusion and clarification.
Meanwhile in Amethi, Priyanaka Gandhi Vadra termed as ‘rubbish’ the MHA notice to her brother and Rahul on the citizenship issue. “I have never heard such rubbish. All know Rahul Gandhi was born, raised here,” Priyanka asserted.
“The entire country knows he was born before them…he was brought up before them… he grew up before them… what rubbish is this?” Priyanka shot back when asked about the notice issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.