If the notice was issued 2 days before Amethi form scrutiny, RO would’ve disallowed Rahul: Swamy on citizenship row

He also wrote: “One of these days I will prove that TDK’s Indian citizen was illegally given since she refused to answer the mandatory questions in her Application form.”

In a move that comes in the middle of the Lok Sabha polls, the Centre issued a notice to Congress president Rahul Gandhi seeking the "factual position" of his citizenship within a fortnight following a complaint by a BJP MP, setting off a political row.

The notice by the Union Home Ministry on Monday on the complaint from Subramanian Swamy alleging that Rahul Gandhi was a British national was dismissed as "rubbish" by Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while her party said the entire world knows the Congress chief is an Indian citizen by birth.

Swamy upon whose complaint the MHA issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to explain on Wednesday that if the MHA had issued the show cause notice two-days before Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi form scrutiny, the Returning Officer could’ve ‘disallowed’ him.

Using one of his oft-repeated sobriquets for the Congress president, Swamy wrote: “If the Home Minister show cause Notice to Buddha had been issued two days before Amethi  form scrutiny, the RO would have disallowed Buddhu to contest pending the inquiry.”

He also wrote: “One of these days I will prove that TDK’s Indian citizen was illegally given since she refused to answer the mandatory questions in her Application form.”

1. What the notice says

The notice letter, accessed by Zee Media, states that a company named Backups Limited was registered in the UK in the year 2003, with address 51 Southgate Street, Winchester, Hampshire and that Gandhi was one of the directors and secretary of the company.

According to the notice, the company's annual returns, filed in 2005 2006, states that Gandhi was born on 19/06/1980 and that his declared nationality was British. Indians aren't allowed to hold dual citizenships. Earlier, Swamy had claimed that Gandhi's declaration of being a British citizen was illegal since he was also an MP in India at that time.

The notice asks Rahul Gandhi to intimate the factual position in the matter to the Home Ministry within a fortnight of receiving the communication.  The later was dated April 29, 2019.

Swamy had earlier raised doubts about Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship.  He had claimed that the Congress president had been issued an extra passport by MEA in 1994 and that his ‘citizenship would be canceled’.

2. MHA notice to Rahul

The Home Ministry communication said Swamy's letter also mentioned that in the British company's annual returns filed on October 10, 2005, and October 31, 2006, Rahul Gandhi's date of birth has been given as June 19, 1970, and he had declared his nationality as British.
"Further, in the dissolution application dated February 17, 2009, of the above-referred company, your nationality has been mentioned as British.

"You are requested to intimate the factual position in the matter to this ministry within a fortnight of the receipt of this communication," the notice to Rahul Gandhi said.
In November 2015, the Supreme Court had dismissed a public interest litigation seeking a CBI investigation into the citizenship of Rahul Gandhi while noting that PIL pleas were not meant to target one individual or organization but were a medium to resolve human suffering through good governance.

A bench of the Chief Justice of India H L Dattu and justice Amitava Roy rubbished the plea questioning the source and authenticity of the documents attached to a petition.
Rajnath Singh told reporters in Lucknow that if any MP writes a letter to any ministry, then necessary proceedings are undertaken by the ministry. "It is not a big development, it is a normal process," he said.

Asked specifically if the timing of the letter raising the question on the citizenship of the country's main opposition leader was relevant as it comes in the election season, Singh replied, "No, no. This question was raised in Parliament also. A Member of Parliament (Dr. Subramanian Swamy) has written to the ministry several times as well, following which the action has been taken."

3. What Rahul said in 2016

 In 2016, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had forwarded to the Parliamentary Ethics Committee, headed by veteran BJP leader L K Advani, Swamy's "complaint of ethical misconduct" against Rahul Gandhi that he had accessed documents in which the Congress leader had called himself "British".

In his reply to the ethics committee on the allegations of British citizenship, Rahul Gandhi had said he had never "sought or acquired British citizenship" and that his "identity is that of an Indian".
Rahul Gandhi also questioned the committee's decision to look into a "complaint that is not in order", claiming it was "an endeavor to malign" him.

The panel had issued a notice to him, seeking an explanation to whether he had once declared himself a British citizen on the legal papers of a company in the United Kingdom.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lost the plot. After four phases of elections, it is clear that Modi ji and the BJP are hurtling towards an imminent defeat at breakneck speed. Consequently, they seek to manufacture one malicious and fallacious agenda every day. These are rehashed allegations of the year 2014-15. I had rejected them then also," Surjewala told reporters in Delhi.

"Modi government should be renamed as a desperate government manufacturing one allegation per day, but your fake allegation will not replace the truth".

The seven-phase Lok Sabha elections are underway of which four phases were completed on Monday.
Rahul Gandhi is seeking re-election from party bastion Amethi in Uttar Pradesh which goes to polls in the fifth phase of voting on May 6. He is also contesting from Wayanad in Kerala where polling has been completed.

An objection on the citizenship issue was also raised by an independent candidate against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, but the returning officer after scrutiny declared his nomination papers as valid.




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