Escalating the ongoing Mallya-Jaitley controversy, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday attacked the Congress by making claims of close ties between Congress leaders and fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya.
Patra also accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of accepting favours from Mallya's airline and said, "Rahul Gandhi has gone on back-foot over Kingfisher Airlines. Benefits that Gandhi family got out of Kingfisher Airlines via business class up-gradation, free tickets, etc is in public domain. There are series of letters which show that sweet notes have been sent by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh for the restructuring of Kingfisher airlines and to save it. Some relaxations were offered exclusively to Kingfisher and we want to know what is the relation between Rahul Gandhi and Vijay Mallya."
He also questioned former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's comment made in reference to the now-defunct airline and said, "On November 14, 2011, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said during an in-flight media interaction that 'we have to find ways to get Kingfisher out of trouble'. In October same year, Mallya also wrote a letter to Manmohan Singh for sparing time to meet him. Despite all this, Congress is now questioning as to how a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament is meeting someone in the corridors of Parliament."
Patra also alleged that on March 22, 2013, Mallya wrote a letter to State Bank of India (SBI) and requested for a loan of Rs. 500 crore and when the bank rejected his request, former Union Minister P Chidambaram intervened in the matter and wrote a letter to the SBI.
Continuing his tirade against Congress, Patra said that people out on bail must not cast aspersions on others. He also accused Congress president of having ties with Hawala companies and said, "Rahul Gandhi has ties with Hawala companies and we want a clarification on the same. We have got the related document with us. Rahul Gandhi's Young India Company had taken a loan of Rs 1 crore from Dotex Merchandise Pvt Ltd, which dealt in unaccounted money and bogus share capitals," he added.
On Wednesday, Mallya, who left India in March 2016, claimed that he had met the Finance Minister before leaving for London. Jaitley, however, rebuffed Mallya's claim and said that he never gave Mallya an appointment.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)