BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Monday accused Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi of declaring himself as a British national in 2005, while holding the post of director in a U.K. private firm, Backops Limited, a charge fiercely denied by the Congress.
At a press conference here, Dr. Swamy shared copies of the company’s annual returns, in which Mr. Gandhi’s identity is certified as British.
However, the documents accessed by The Hindu via official database of the British government show that Mr. Gandhi had specifically declared his nationality as Indian in the Memorandum of Association signed in 2003 at the time the company was founded. Yet, in a separate listing of annual returns filed in 2005, documents show Mr. Gandhi’s citizenship as British.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dr. Swamy said: “As you can see from the company annual return that Mr. Rahul Gandhi has given his date of birth correctly, but has declared himself to be of British nationality with a United Kingdom address ... he held 65 per cent of the shares … .” The BJP leader alleged that prima facie there was a violation of Article 9 of the Indian Constitution, according to which every citizen of India was barred from voluntarily acquiring citizenship of any foreign State. While the United Kingdom permitted dual citizenship, India did not. Article 18 prohibited an Indian citizen from accepting even foreign titles, he said. Dr. Swamy also alleged that Mr. Gandhi had an undeclared overseas account with a Zurich-based bank.
The Congress described the allegation as an attempt to “gain cheap publicity” and to “divert the attention” from the revolt that was brewing within the BJP after facing an electoral defeat in Bihar. “From the day he was born, Rahul Gandhi has held Indian citizenship and Indian passport and has never held citizenship of any other country nor has he represented as such,” Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said.
