NEW DELHI, Oct 7:
Dismissing as “utterly false and defamatory” allegations over his property dealings with DLF, Robert Vadra today said his business transactions are “fully reflected” in financial statements before Government authorities in compliance with the law.
42-year-old Vadra, son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, also said he was saddened by the attempt of activists Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan to malign him and his family, alleging it was being done to gain “cheap publicity” and for the launch of their political party.
Kejriwal on his part claimed Vadra has not answered questions on his links with DLF and described as “half truths and lies” the clarifications of the realty major to allegations that the husband of Priyanka was given property at throw away prices for Government favours.
Reacting to Vadra’s remarks that he and Bhushan were maligning him and his family to “gain cheap publicity”, Kejriwal said, “Robert Vadra has questioned our motives that is not important. He has not replied to the questions that we have raised.”
“My business transactions are fully reflected in financial statements filed before appropriate Government authorities in compliance with the law. They are available in the public domain to anyone interested in knowing the truth,” Vadra said rebutting the charges by Kejriwal.
“I am a private law abiding citizen who has been engaged in business over the last 21 years. The allegations levelled against me by Kejriwal and Bhushan are utterly false, entirely baseless and defamatory”, Vadra said, two days after charges made by the civil society activists at a press conference here created a political storm.
Vadra said he was “saddened by the attempt of Kejriwal and Bhushan to deliberately misrepresent numbers contained in my financial statements, manufacture lies against me and malign me and my family in order to gain cheap publicity for themselves and for the launch of their political party”.
His statement came a day after he broke his silence over the controversy surrounding his property dealings, saying he could “handle all the negativity”.
“DLF has issued a response. It is full of half truths and lies. A lot of information has been suppressed. But does Vadra stand by DLF response or does he have another version? I would appreciate his version,” Kejriwal said.
He said he will not be able to respond to the specific issues in DLF’s response today as his team is working on it.
“I had gone through the DLF response curiously. It is clear that there are a lot of information that they have suppressed…It will not be correct for me to respond now. We will issue a detailed response tomorrow.
“I just want to know if Robert Vadra has the same response or if he has a different version. He did not respond to any of the specific issues we have raised,” Kejriwal said.
In a statement yesterday, DLF had said it had given Rs 65 crore as “business advances” out of which Rs 15 crore was fully refunded and Rs 50 crore was used for purchase of land.
Rejecting the allegations made by Kejriwal and Bhushan that the company favoured Vadra, DLF had said it neither received any undue benefit from any State Governments nor was it allotted any land by Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan Governments.
Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi said the tactics adopted by Kejriwal were only continuous attempts to gain cheap publicity.
BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the parties concerned should put forward concrete clarifications on the matter and put an end to the issue.
“If one organisation claims there are some irregularities and then Congress claims nothing of this sort…There will be no end to this cycle,” he added. (PTI)
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