Conflict of interest: AAP questions Prasad, Tewari stand

The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday questioned the clarifications issued by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Congress leader Manish Tewari on the alleged conflict of interest resulting from their associations with Reliance Industries Limited prior to becoming ministers.

Continuing their attack on the two politicians on the issue, party leaders Yogendra Yadav and Ashish Khetan said that by not questioning the documents shared by the party on Thursday, the two leaders have confirmed that they had indeed received payments from RIL and Group companies.

Mr. Yadav said that even though both leaders have shared the dates when their respective association with these companies ended, neither has made public when these actually began.

Mr. Prasad and Mr. Tewari were also members of a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Telecommunication, which examined matters relating to allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum.

"In his defense, Mr. Tewari has clarified that he had informed the JPC chairman about his earlier association with RIL but Mr. Prasad is yet to come clean on whether he did something similar,” said Mr. Yadav.