The BJP and the Congress traded charges over the serving of an income tax notice to Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress president Rahul Gandhi. While the BJP questioned the silence of Mr. Gandhi, the Congress said that the notice was to distract attention from the “four Ms – Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi” managing to flee the country before law enforcement agencies could get to them.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra addressed a presser on the issue and said, “fugitive tycoon Vijay Mallya and Robert Vadra, the epitome of corruption during the Congress-led UPA government, are now feeling the heat of the law. They are feeling insecure.” “Why is Rahul Gandhi silent on the income tax notice to Vadra and why didn’t he call it out,” he asked.
Income Tax department had issued a notice to Mr. Vadra and his company Skylight Hospitality to pay arrears worth ₹25 crore for the year 2010-11, he said, adding the law is now catching up with the corrupt in the country.
“Mallya was happy during the UPA era and sad now. Now you can judge how we treat a defaulter and how the UPA treated them,” he said.
Mr. Patra also claimed that Mallya had written to then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in 2013, seeking favours for loan disbursals.
Agencies misused: Cong.
Reacting to the allegations, Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said that the issue once again highlighted the misuse of agencies like Income Tax department for political gain by the ruling party.
“On 18 September 2012 Skylight Private Limited sold 3.53 acres of land for 58 crores. It was an above board deal and there was no corruption. Filing their income tax return for the relevant year Skylight Private Limited explicitly mentions the deal and pays capital gain worth ₹8.52 crore. Income Tax department accepts the return too.”
She claimed that BJP has pressurised the Income Tax department to tweak the rules to impose retrospective tax. “How is it that the rule that land deals are to be listed under Capital Gains is suddenly tweaked for one individual and now the IT department wants to categorise the land deal as business income?” she added.
Lodging the ball back in BJP’s court the Congress has demanded that instead of response from Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Robert Vadra, they want response from BJP president Amit Shah on his son Jay Shah’s business deals, on reports that Ahemdabad District Cooperative Bank deposited ₹750 crore of old currency within five days after demonetisation, on how the government helped Lalit Modi with his travel documents, on how the government helped Vijay Mallya to flee the country and on how despite revoking Nirav Modi’s passport he was able to travel the world.