Protests
14 October 2012. Salman Khurshid returned to Delhi amid protests by Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption (IAC). Khurshid who was in London for the past few days denied allegations that his NGO siphoned off money meant for disabled with sufficient proof. There were protesters at Indira Gandhi International Airport where the Law Minister landed. The protesters raised slogans and attempted to show black flags. In a show of support to Kejriwal and IAC there were protests all over the country. In Patna, Bihar, protestors raised slogans against the government and burned an effigy of Khurshid to showcase their anger. In Delhi, Kejriwal and supporters continued their protests at the Parliament Street Police Station. Kejriwal said that there was complete lawlessness in the country and the government was behaving in a dictatorial manner against the people without citing any reason. He demanded the resignation of the Law Minister. In Bhopal, a team of specially-abled lent their voice to the agitation launched by the IAC. The demand for Khurshid’s resignation was also raised in Bangalore and Ludhiana. For the first time since IAC was started in December 2010, both the poor and the middle class have joined together to fight against organised corruption. Arvind Kejriwal has challenged Salman Khurshid to answer his five questions: 1 – Your organisation had given a letter to the government of India and UP government in 2009-10 recommending satisfactory and good work done by your organistaon and was a recommendation to sanction more funds. In this letter UP government’s special secretary Ram Raj Singh had signed. But in the reports published in the media, Ram Raj Singh had said that these were not his signatures. Ram Raj Singh also says that the letter was written on March 24, 2011 but he retired in January 2011. Do you agree that your organisation forged the letter to get next set of grants? 2 – Your organisation had produced an affidavit from a former CDO JB Singh, where in JB Singh states that your organisation is doing good work in UP. Whereas JB Singh says that affidavit is forged and he had not given any affidavit. Do you agree that affidavit is forged, if yes then why did you attach forged affidavit? 3 – Akhilesh Yadav government on June 12, 2012 wrote to government of India wherein they raised question of forged signatures of scores of officers. According to you, are these papers true or not? 4 – Your organisation has claimed that your they had conducted camps on certain dates in districts, but UP government is saying that there were no camps conducted on the dates mentioned by you, neither was any material distributed by you. 5 – In your organisation’s list, there are details of many handicapped people who according to you have got materials from camps organised by your organisation but these handicapped people claim that they never got any materials. Would you resign from the post of Law Minister and from politics as well?
Robert Vadra
Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, is said to be a director of at least 12 companies of which six were started only this year. These new companies have not yet filed their first balance sheet. Of the other six firms, which have been in existence for longer period, their preferred banks were Corporation Bank and Standard Chartered. Blue Breeze, Sky Light Realty and Sky Light Hospitality all have active accounts with Corporation Bank in the national Capital. In some of these filings, it is specified that the accounts are in the Friends Colony branch of the bank. Sky Light Hospitality’s for 2007-08, showed an over-draft of Rs 7.94 crore (S$ 1.5 million). The bank has until now denied extending any over-draft to the firm. This has stirred up yet another controversy surrounding Vadra, whose meteoric financial gains has turned into a full-fledged political controversy. Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption (IAC) last week demanded a thorough investigation into it. Blue Breeze Trading also has an account with the Friends Colony branch of Corporation Bank. In fact, it was the only account that the company had when it started. Later, the company opened an account with Standard Chartered Bank. Starting from IAC’s disclosure on 5 October 2012 about the close business ties between Vadra and realty major DLF, Kejriwal already seemed to be setting the agenda. India Against Corruption members Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan alleged that DLF had given an interest-free unsecured loan of 65 crore ($ 12.2 million) to Vadra and his companies. Independent directors of DLF have said the controversial transactions between Robert Vadra and India’s largest realty firm were not discussed by the board and if allegations of easy loans and cheap deals are proved, they should be probed. “The matter was not flagged off at any board meeting. We have not come across any such instance where favours have been done. It’s not come to our notice. It is not possible to look at each and every sale transaction. But we try to ensure that all transactions are done at market prices,” said KN Memani, an independent director at DLF, and former chairman of Ernst & Young India.
