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The sound and fury over Vijay Mallya’s alleged meeting with finance minister Arun Jaitley before he fled India in 2016 shows that the Congress has learnt well from the BJP the art of blowing up a scandal.
The Congress certainly hasn’t forgotten how the BJP whipped up a frenzy over the most minor details in the last years of UPA-2, not even allowing Parliament to function.
Now, in 2018, on the threshold of several assembly elections and months before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi has decided that he will pay the BJP back in the same coin.
Congress MP P.L. Punia’s comments that he “saw” Jaitley and Mallya together in Parliament, chatting with each other for 15 minutes, and Jaitley’s distressed denials, have added masala to the political potboiler.
The truth? Well, it should be out, sooner or later.
Both TV and print media were convulsed by the story, as the Congress and the BJP accused each other of collusion in the Mallya affair.
Hindustan Times, The Times of India, and The Indian Express all did front-page reports on the back-and-forth between Rahul Gandhi and P.L. Punia on one side, and union minister Piyush Goyal on the other.
Hindustan Times reports Gandhi having said with confidence, “A meeting was held with Mr Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya. The logistics of Mr Mallya leaving the country were discussed in that meeting.”
As if this weren’t enough, both parties and their members seemed to have live-tweeted the whole exchange:
Congress should clarify what relations they had with Kingfisher airlines: Shri @PiyushGoyal https://t.co/9hSzcorep3 #RahulMallyaLootedIndia
— BJP (@BJP4India) September 13, 2018
Since 2010 UPA violated all norms for Vijay Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines: Shri @PiyushGoyal https://t.co/9hSzcorep3 #RahulMallyaLootedIndia pic.twitter.com/meEzpOFmZC
— BJP (@BJP4India) September 13, 2018
On 1st March 2016, when I was in Central Hall of Parliament House, I witnessed @arunjaitley and Vijay Mallya talking discretely. On 3rd March, we heard from media that he fled the country on 2nd March, 2016: @plpunia#ArunJaitleyStepDown
— Congress (@INCIndia) September 13, 2018
This is a clear-cut case of collusion. There is some deal between them. FM @arunjaitley must resign and this should be investigated: Congress President @RahulGandhi#ArunJaitleyStepDown
— Congress (@INCIndia) September 13, 2018
Meanwhile, the media’s coverage of the matter has expanded beyond Jaitley’s alleged meeting with Mallya.
“CBI to probe UPA finance minister angle in loans to Vijay Mallya” reads a headline in The Economic Times; “Four days before Vijay Mallya flew out, lawyer told SBI to move court, stop him” says one in the The Indian Express. The Times of India reports, “No foul play in change of LOC (lookout circular) for Mallya, ‘detain’ order was issued by mistake: CBI”.
The Telegraph interviewed the government’s former top law officer, Mukul Rohatgi, who said there was a possibility that a tip-off led Mallya to flee the country. “But the disclosure by Rohatgi about his suspicion of a tip-off reflects the gravity of the unanswered questions swirling around Mallya’s flight, which have assumed greater significance after the finance minister himself confirmed that an encounter did take place before the defaulter escaped.”
Meanwhile, an explainer in The Indian Express provides a breakdown of the Rs 9,000 crore Mallya owes banks, 17 of them, to be precise.
Business Class
The mother plays the peacemaker! Fortis Healthcare co-founder Shivinder Singh has decided to withdraw the case he filed against brother Malvinder Singh after their bedridden mother stepped in, reports Business Standard. “Sources said she had stopped eating for the past few days and had constantly been making calls and sending emails to the two brothers,” the report added.
Retailers fear the Rs 1 lakh+ price tag of the new iPhones may put off buyers after the euphoria surrounding their launch subsides, reports The Economic Times.
Point of View
India’s higher education sector is in a mess. Former Delhi University vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh in a column in The Indian Express, “Top-down, centrally managed policies oppress India’s education sector. More autonomy, a radical restructuring of goals, enlightened leadership are necessary for a turnaround.”
What is more important: Bread & butter, or Rahul’s Mansarovar Yatra? Activist Tanweer Alam writes in a column in The Times of India, “Growing religiosity in a large swathe of the democratic world has made a strong case for abandoning the idea of an absolute division between church and state, an idea that originated from Europe in the 18th century.”
Prime Time
When Mallya met Jaitley
The debate on India Today TV centred on Rajya Sabha member P.L. Punia’s accusations that Arun Jaitley met Vijay Mallya at Parliament House on 1 March 2016, a day before the industrialist is believed to have fled India.
BJP spokesperson Sayed Zafar Islam said Punia had made the allegation under “party pressure”. “Even if we assume that Punia’s allegations are true, that does not mean Arun Jaitley has done any crime,” he added.
News it’s just kinda cool to know
Humans arrived on the island of Madagascar more than 6,000 years earlier than what was previously believed, according to a study led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in the UK. Earlier, it was thought that humans arrived at the tropical island about 4000 years ago. The new research shows that humans landed on the islands approximately 10,500 years ago.
With inputs from Ratnadeep Choudhary