'Narendra Modi is PM, not shahenshah': Sonia Gandhi defends Robert Vadra

On Tuesday, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi criticised the Narendra Modi government on its two years in power and came out in defence of her son-in-law Robert Vadra over an inquiry into whether he was bought a benami house in London from the arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. This was a strange outburst from a party leader who doesn’t speak to the media very often, but on this occasion spoke at length in defence of Vadra, who isn’t even a party member. Sonia criticised the Modi government for celebrating its success of two years. She disapproved of Modi’s conduct, alleging that he behaves like an emperor as opposed to an elected official leader. She said, “I’ve never seen anything like this, Modi ji is a PM not a shehenshah” She added, “Our nation is facing drought, poverty, farmer is in pain; at these times a “show” is not appropriate.”

#WATCH Congress President Sonia Gandhi reacts on allegations on Robert Vadra of links with arms dealerhttps://t.co/CYS9754KBH

— ANI (@ANI) May 31, 2016

The Congress chief dared the government to conduct investigations into the matter if they had sufficient proof. She alleged, “Yeh bhi ek conspiracy hai, ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ ka matlab kya hai? Roz bahaana banate hain, galat ilzaam lagate hain (This too is a conspiracy by the BJP for a Congress-free India. They make different excuses everyday and allege wrong things.) She added, “Agar aisi baat hai, toh bina bhed-bhaav jaanch karo; doodh ka doodh paani ka paani (Without any bias, lets have an investigation in the matter. The truth shall be revealed). According to an exclusive report by NDTV, Vadra, is being probed after a connection was found between him and arms dealer Bhandari. The connection came to light during an the Income Tax raids on Bhandari, where a series of email interactions between Bhandari and Vadra also revealed the existence of a London property (bought for almost Rs 19 crore). Vadra, who arguably shot to fame due to his business deals, was also mentioned in the documents released by India Against Corruption (IAC) that showed how he acquired land assets in and around the National Capital Region (NCR), worth hundreds of crores of rupees, funded by interest-free loans given to him by DLF and other companies for no apparent reason, as mentioned in an earlier report. Lately, the Modi government has alleged the Congress of corruption in various deals and scams. The party has been under constant scrutiny over various deals like the AgustaWestland chopper deal. Earlier in the year the party chief and her son Rahul Gandhi had been named in the National Herald controversy wherein the Congress was allegedly involved in illegal activities. At the time too, Sonia had lashed out saying, ‘Why dont you challenge us in the court?’. The case went to the courts and Rahul and Sonia are now out on bail. At the time too, the party president had claimed that this was a controversy by the BJP against the Congress.