Author: Shyamlal Yadav
Publication: India Today
Date: August 8, 2011
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/sonia-gandhi-rahul-gandhi-lok-sabha/1/146474.html
Introduction: It's courtesy for foreign-bound
MP's to inform the secretariat. Not so for the congress first family.
Early in June this year, United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi took off for London and her native
Italy as political heat from civil society activists over black money and
corruption soared in the Capital. In mid-June, Congress General Secretary
and MP Rahul Gandhi ushered in his 41st birthday in London and topped up with
a Swiss holiday. Both Sonia and Rahul's trips were widely documented in the
media but the Lok Sabha secretariat has no information on them. It's common
courtesy for MPs to inform the secretariat about trips abroad, even if they
are of a personal nature. But since June 2004, the month UPA came to power,
the Congress president and her son have not bothered to inform the secretariat
about any of their foreign trips.
When India Today filed an application under
the Right to Information (RTI) Act to the Lok Sabha secretariat asking for
details of personal foreign travel made by MPs since the 14th Lok Sabha, it
furnished relevant information for lawmakers other than the Gandhis. The reply
from Harish Chander, Deputy Secretary, Lok Sabha, was, "This secretariat
attends to work relating to official visits of Indian parliamentary delegations
going abroad and maintains record of foreign travel of members of the Lok
Sabha in their personal capacity if such travel is intimated by them to the
Speaker's office." India Today filed another RTI query specifically asking
how many intimations/requests the Lok Sabha secretariat received regarding
the foreign travels of Sonia and Rahul during the 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas.
The response of K. Sona, under secretary, Lok Sabha, on July 4 was: "Nil."
Even official foreign travel details of the
Gandhis are a mystery. In February 2010, Hisar-based activist Ramesh Kumar
filed an RTI query with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) for details of foreign
travel made by Sonia Gandhi and followed it up with a second appeal before
the Central Information Commission (CIC). PMO and Cabinet secretariat representatives
told CIC that they had forwarded the query to the Ministry of Parliamentary
Affairs and Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The Cabinet
secretariat told Kumar on July 8, 2011 that his query has been forwarded to
the National Advisory Council's (NAC) Central Public Information Officer and
PMO. In turn, NAC said it didn't have the details.
"It is disturbing that institutions that
run the government have no knowledge of the authority that can furnish details
of Sonia Gandhi's foreign travel," says Kumar.
