UPA bailed out KFA with airline-specific deal: BJP

NEW DELHI: BJP on Thursday launched a counter-offensive against Congress president Rahul Gandhi over fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, saying his defunct Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) was bailed out by the Congress-led UPA by a company-specific deal that ignored the bad loans that had piled up.


Railway minister Piyush Goyal said Mallya’s claims of having met finance minister Arun Jaitley had been rebutted and there was no reason to believe a person on the run from the law. He said Rahul should explain claims that he had met absconding jeweller Nirav Modi, and whether he was ready to explain income tax proceedings against him.

BJP also used a video clip of former civil aviation minister and Congress leader Vayalar Ravi and former PM Manmohan Singh saying the government needed to help Kingfisher Airlines. Party spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “Sometimes, it seems the airline was not owned by Mallya but by the Gandhi family in proxy.”

Hitting back at Rahul’s charge that Jaitley had helped Mallya escape, Patra said, “Someone who is himself out on bail (in the National Herald case) has no right to question others on corruption.”

In a second press conference, Goyal, said, “All norms, laws and regulations were bypassed to help Kingfisher Airlines and specific instructions were given by the Congress-led UPA government to banks for restructuring of loans for the company.” He said both Rahul and Mallya were “playing a duet of lies”. He said Congress was trying to make an issue of one and a half sentences spoken in the Parliament corridor.

The minister said Jaitley had worked to clean up the mess left behind by the UPA and highlighted legislation like the fugitive offenders bill that provided for seizure of assets of those who fled the country.

In tweets, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked if Rahul and Mallya were “working in tandem” and claimed the liquor baron had allegedly benefited from bank facilities during the UPA government.

Patra showed what he claimed was the confessional statement of a

hawala

trader and alleged that Rahul had links with a shell company. He said the entire Gandhi family used to travel on Kingfisher Airlines and their travel was upgraded to business class for free. Jaitley had said on Wednesday he had never given Mallya an appointment since 2014 but the businessman “misused” his privilege as an MP to accost him in Parliament.