NEW DELHI: The political fight over
Vijay Mallya escalated on Thursday, with Congress president
Rahul Gandhi charging finance minister
Arun Jaitley with colluding in the liquor baron’s flight from India and BJP hitting back, saying the UPA regime bent over to carve out a “sweet deal” for the fugitive businessman.
Though the former
Kingfisher Airlines boss clarified his claim by saying he had only bumped into Jaitley in Parliament, the political storm continued to rage with Congress MP P L Punia claiming to have seen a long conversation between the two.
Railway minister
Piyush Goyal said Jaitley had already said he had snubbed Mallya and asked him to approach bankers, and attacked Rahul, saying he should explain the company-specific deal for Mallya’s firm which managed to get the benefit of its loans being “evergreened”.
“He (Rahul) should also explain why he hid his income in the National Herald case and why, despite all the protestations about freedom of expression, he sought a bar on reporting,” Goyal said. He asked how Punia had remembered the incident more than two years later and what exactly was he doing. “Was he eavesdropping?” he asked.
Rahul said Punia saw Jaitley sitting with Mallya in Central Hall on March 1, 2016, and a 15-20 minute meeting took place. The Congress chief said Jaitley should resign.
BJP struck back, saying, “There is a series of letters between RBI and SBI. They show us how the previous dispensation under
Sonia Gandhi was biased and kept all norms at bay to give a sweet deal to Kingfisher Airlines.”
