Author: Lakshmi Iyer
Publication: Mumbai Mirror
Date: June 10, 2006
Cong chief told EC she only has Rs 20,000
with her, then how did Rahul spend 10 years in London, asks Amar
Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh is curious to
know how Congress chief Sonia Gandhi can afford to dine in five-star hotels
with just Rs 20,000 to her name.
"In her declaration to the Election Commission
(EC), Sonia has said she does not have a car and possesses a cash deposit
of only Rs 20,000, but many a time I have seen her eating Chinese food in
five-star hotels. Surely, the sum of Rs 20,000 would not be enough to afford
it," he said at a press conference in Delhi.
Turning his attention to the declaration made
by her son Rahul, Singh alleged that the Lok Sabha MP from Amethi is passionate
about speed biking and that he had spent 10 years in London.
"How did he live in London with 55 pounds
in his bank account? Did mama Quattrocchi pay for it? Was that why his account
was frozen? This is unacceptable. We want the ethics committee of the Rajya
Sabha (headed by Karan Singh of the Congress) to draw up guidelines for all
MPs."
Singh's charges were prompted by the Supreme
Court asking Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and his family
members to show his income tax returns from 2001-06 and also his investments
in the same period in response to a PIL filed by a Congress leader named Vishwanath
Chaturvedi.
"The apex court's order did not come
as a surprise to us. We can fully comply with it because both Mulayam and
his son Akhilesh Singh have been filing I-T returns every year. But what we
cannot countenance is there being two sets of rules. All those in public life
should be asked to reveal their I-T returns for the past five years,"
Singh said.
He said Chaturvedi had been propped by the
Congress only to embarrass Mulayam. "He is very much like Madan Mohan
Shukla, the man Congress set up to unseat Jaya Bachchan (from the Rajya Sabha).
Right now, Chaturvedi is a guest at the chief minister's suite in Haryana
Bhawan."
Singh believes Chaturvedi has drawn most of
his material for his PIL from the declaration made by Mulayam Singh Yadav
before the EC.
In between all these allegations, the EC's
direction asking Amar Singh to appear before it on June 16 in connection with
the office-of-profit issue was buried. "I am prepared to face any penal
action," Singh said.
