Home Ministry issues notice to Rahul Gandhi over foreign citizenship

Guwahati: Congress President Rahul Gandhi has been issued a notice by the Home Ministry to explain within 15 days of his factual position over a complaint that he has foreign citizenship. Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentarian Subramanian Swamy alleged that Rahul Gandhi declared himself a British citizen in documents.

The home ministry has issued the notice in the middle of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls in which Gandhi is contesting from two constituencies of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and Wayanad in Kerala.

The letter from BC Joshi, Director, Citizenship in the Home Ministry said that he has been directed to say that this ministry has received a representation from Swamy in which it has been brought out that a company named Backops Limited was registered in the United Kingdom in the year 2003. The address of the company written in the letter was 51 Southgate Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 9EH and that Gandhi was one of the Directors and Secretary of the said company.

The ministry refers to the complaint as saying that Gandhi’s date of birth is June 19, 1970 and you had declared your nationality as British as per the annual company’s returns filed on October 10, 2005 and October 31, 2006.

The letter further reads as, “The dissolution application of the company dated February 17, 2009 also refers to Rahul Gandhi’s nationality as British.”

The Home Ministry, therefore asks Rahul Gandhi to intimate the factual position in the matter to the ministry within a fortnight of the receipt of the communication.

Swamy had earlier raised the allegation in 2015 in a complaint to the ethics committee of parliament and has repeated it several times since to which Gandhi had replied to the ethics committee that he had accused the BJP leader of misleading the nation and had challenged him to substantiate his claims with documentary proof. Gandhi, while denying seeking British citizenship called it an endeavor to malign his name.

Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that this is BJP in panic mode. “Rahul Gandhi is the only agenda for BJP. They can do whatever they want but they will decisively lose the election,” said Surjewala.

Moreover, union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that it was a very serious question for the president of a party adding that one should be a citizen of India if he wants to vote or fight the election.

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