Robert Vadra, entrepreneur and son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons — this time because the Rajasthan High Court has ordered officials from a firm he owns to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is investigating the Bikaner land grab case.
Incidentally, Vadra's brother-in-law and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had said recently that he had proof of corruption against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but stopped short of making the evidence public.
Subsequently, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal has said Rahul Gandhi had kept mum because he was afraid that Vadra would be prosecuted if he spoke. Kejriwal wrote on Twitter on Friday: "Rahul does not have guts to expose anything against Modi ji. The day he does it, Modi ji will arrest Robert Vadra. [sic]"
Just a day after the end of the Winter session of Parliament, the Rajasthan High Court has rejected a plea by officials from Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd and ordered them to appear before the ED from January 4 to January 6 next year in order to facilitate the agency's probe into the Bikaner land grab case. However, this action cannot be directly linked to Modi or his government because it has been ordered by the judiciary.
Vadra has for long been a thorn in the flesh of the Congress, with his alleged involvement in scams in Rajasthan and Haryana. The accusations range from money laundering to land grab. And in some cases, testimony has also surfaced of such actions.
And because Vadra is married to Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka, he has often been used by political rivals of the Congress — especially the BJP — to target the party with allegations of corruption and nepotism. Congress leader and leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad seemed to be speaking of exactly this when he told ANI: "Whenever there is an attack on the BJP, they divert attention and say things. Enquiry [against Vadra] is on and nothing has been found."
