Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has emphasised that he had never applied for any other citizenship ever. He said there was a “conspiracy” hatched by the ruling BJP to malign his image.
Mr. Gandhi was responding to a Lok Sabha Ethics Committee notice, seeking his reply to allegations that he held British citizenship, party sources said.
On March 15, Arjun Ram Meghwal, BJP chief whip and a member of the Ethics Committee, said that the panel issued a show-cause notice to Mr. Gandhi to learn how he identified himself as British to become a director of a London-based company.
Mr. Gandhi responded to Mr. Meghwal’s statement the same day saying, “We will deal with it [show cause notice].”
Ever since Mr. Gandhi received the notice, Congress’s chief spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala, has maintained that the reply to the notice would remain in conformity with Parliamentary procedure.
Swamy’s charge The controversy over Mr. Gandhi’s citizenship erupted in November 2015, when BJP leader Subramanian Swamy accused him of declaring himself a British citizen to float a firm named Backops Limited in the U.K. Dr. Swamy alleged that in the annual return form of Backops, Mr. Gandhi had declared himself to be a British national with a U.K. address to prove that claim.
Mr. Gandhi, according to Dr. Swamy, has 65 per cent of the total shares issued by this company.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dr. Swamy demanded that the Congress vice-president be stripped of his Indian citizenship and disqualified from Parliament.
