Sahara, Birla Payments Are Rahul Gandhi’s Exposé Against Modi
The entire north Gujarat belt has a sizeable Patel population, which held violent protests against BJP.
- Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi claimed Sahara and Birla Group made 9 payments to Narendra Modi between 2013 and 2014.
- The payments, he claimed, were made while Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat.
- Gandhi played the allegations up while addressing a rally in Mehsana, Gujarat.
- BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad condemned Rahul Gandhi’s allegations against “pure as Ganga” Modi.
- Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala demanded impartial probe into the matter.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at his rally in Mehsana, Gujarat, claimed that the Income Tax department has access to Sahara Group’s ‘diary’, which contains records of nine payments made by the group to Narendra Modi over six months during his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat.
Rahul Gandhi cited the following entries:
He also claimed that the Birla Group has a similar record of money being paid to Modi while he was Gujarat’s chief minister.
Opposition Demands Probe Into Rahul Gandhi’s Allegations
Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), took to Twitter to voice his concern after Rahul Gandhi leveled corruption allegations against Modi.
D Raja, CPI national secretary said, “It's a case which deserves high-level probe so that people get to know the truth”.
Congress Demands Impartial Investigation
After Ravi Shankar Prasad likened Narendra Modi to river Ganga, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that the river Ganga is dirty and needs cleaning. He said:
Surjewala claimed that Rs 25 crore was recovered in an income tax raid on the Birla Group’s office on 15 October 2013. A laptop was also recovered in the raid, Surjewala claimed. The laptop, he said, had an email which read:
He sought an unbiased investigation into the allegations made against Modi as the CBI, he said, has never even questioned Modi in this matter.
Surjewala said that Rahul Gandhi was only asking whether Modi took the money or not. This, he said, is no reason for the BJP to use foul language.
BJP Hammers Gandhi on AgustaWestland, National Herald, and Electoral Failure
Invoking various scams including the AgustaWestland scam, coal scams, the National Herald case, and Congress’ electoral failure in his defence of the BJP, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that that the Congress party did not spare “the sky, space, land, under the land or even the sea” in their corruption.
“The whole history of Congress stinks with corruption,” Prasad said, adding, “I condemn the irresponsible, shameful, baseless allegations of Rahul Gandhi with all the contempt it deserves.”
Prasad claimed that the Supreme Court has observed thrice that there is no proof supporting allegations in the Sahara case against Modi.
When asked about the claims made by Rahul Gandhi at his Mehsana rally, Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home Affairs, dismissed them completely:
PM Modi Keeps Changing Demonetisation Narrative: Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi is addressing a rally in the Patidar-dense region of Mehsana in Gujarat. He attacked the government strongly over demonetisation, besides violence against people of the Dalit and Patidar community, NREGA and tribals’ issues.
Gandhi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to sell demonetisation as a measure against black money; when that failed, tried to present it as an anti-terrorism measure, and when terrorists were found in possession of the new notes, Modi turned towards a “cashless economy” narrative.
These are the highlights of his speech.
- Congress will stand with Narendra Modi if he takes even a small step against corruption. However, demonetisation is a decision against the poor, hard-working people of India.
- For the past 1.5 years, the Modi givernment has been meting out torture for the working class of the country.
- The poor had only asked for three things: loan waiver, halved electricity bill, and right price for grains and vegetables.
- We brought the Land Acquisition Bill, Modiji tried to kill the bill thrice through ordinance.
- The government shoots dead the tribals who try to protect his water, land and forests.
- He also snatched NREGA from the farmers. The government mauled Dalits in Gujarat, they are scared of the people.
- The Patidar community held peaceful protests, and the government killed your women and your children with lathis and gunshots.
- The government runs for and serves a select 15-20 people.
- All cash is not black and all black money is not in cash.
- Modi introduced a new concept called “surgical strike on black money”, which did not target the 94 percent of black money with the 50 richest families, but the 6 percent of it that lies with over 90 percent of the country’s population.
- Demonetisation is like the practice of fire-bombing used in World War 2.
- Modiji, you snatched the daily wage labourers’ money, which comes only in cash, and burnt it.
- The Modi government shut down construction, textile, powerloom, diamond, and transport industries with demonetisation.
Rahul Gandhi Woos Patidar Community
Rahul Gandhi will be addressing a public rally in the Mehsana region of Gujarat on Wednesday. He offered prayers at the Umiya Mata temple in the region shortly before his rally.
Gandhi's visit to the Umiya Mata temple at Unjha, which is around 25 km from Mehsana and holds significance in the wake of the agitation for reservation under the OBC category by the Patel community.
The Patel community, a decisive vote bank in Gujarat, has two main sects – Leuva and Kadva. Maa Umiya is the reigning deity of the Kadva Patel community.
He landed at Ahmedabad Airport at around 1:30 pm and went straight to Unjha by helicopter to visit the Umiya Mata temple, where he performed an aarti along with senior state Congress leaders, including Shankarsinh Vaghela, Bharatsinh Solanki and Siddharth Patel.
The entire northern Gujarat belt, including Mehsana, has a sizeable Patel population. The region witnessed some of the most violent protests against the BJP government on the issue of reservation, as well as the deaths of at least 12 Patel youths during the violence in August last year.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)