New Delhi: Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday called questions about Rahul Gandhi’s foreign trips and who paid for them “very serious”, and urged the Congress leader to share full details of his overseas travel with the proper authorities to avoid any legal trouble, PTI reported.
The comments came after the BJP raised doubts about the funding of Gandhi’s trips. BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, speaking at the party office, said Gandhi made 54 foreign trips in the past 22 years and that those trips cost about Rs 60 crore. Patra said Gandhi’s poll affidavits over the last 10 years show his total income was about Rs 11 crore.
BJP demands clarity
At the briefing, Patra asked where the money for the trips came from and called for clarity. Using the affidavit numbers, the BJP said there is a clear gap between Gandhi’s declared income and the money spent on foreign travel. The party has asked for a full accounting of how the trips were funded.
Rijiju backed the call for answers and stressed that MPs must follow the rules when travelling abroad. “My request to Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party is that (you) please follow the rules and provide the requisite information to the authorities… Tomorrow, if anything happens, if some actions are initiated, then the government should not be blamed for targeting Rahulji,” the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs told reporters.
Rules on Reporting Trips
Rijiju reminded MPs they must tell the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariat three weeks before going overseas. He said they must also inform the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) if they accept hospitality from abroad or if organisations pay their travel costs.
“Section 6 of the FCRA Act 2010 clearly stipulates how an MP should inform the MHA and also the MEA of their foreign hospitality which they accept,” Rijiju said. He warned of two possible legal angles: “So, if you are spending much more than your known source of income, then it is a matter of income tax rules. And if you accept the foreign hospitality without informing the MHA under Section 6 of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), then there are penalty provisions.”
Rijiju criticised what he called several “unannounced” trips by Gandhi, pointing to a recent unpublicised visit. “The recent matter which came to the public domain about his sudden visit to Muscat without informing anybody… the Congress party has not given any kind of clarification for that,” he said.
He asked the Congress to say who invited Gandhi and who paid for the trips: “But you must inform who are the people who invited you and what expenditure was incurred by those agencies and organisations outside India,” he said.
