Personal life of a public figure is always under scrutiny. Many social movements in fact, have declared, ‘personal is political’. Especially if a family is a part of ruling dispensation of a country, directly or indirectly, for about 50 years, it is very difficult to separate their personal lives from public ones. When Congress party’s last hope Priyanka Gandhi was pained because election is being focussed on ‘meaningless talks’ of corruption charges against her husband, the question of personal vs public becomes more pertinent. Her appeal was to exonerate her sacred personal core out of public scrutiny. She has every right to do so, only after explaining few issues of her family life that have direct impact on public life of India.
First of all, in which capacity is she campaigning for her mother and brother, personal or political? Agreed, it is permissible under her democratic rights as an independent citizen. But her family has been using all the power without any accountability for the last 10 years. Assets of her mother have increased manifold in the last 5 years as per self-declared affidavits. How did it happen? Surely the electorate has the right to know.
As per the complaint filed by Subramaniam Swamy, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had applied and obtained three Director Identification Numbers (DINs). This is a criminal contravention and violation of Section 155 of the Companies Act read with Section 159 thereof. Section 155 permits one and only one DIN per person. How did she manage to do so is not a personal but a legal question, which needs answer from the ardent truth seekers of Gandhi family.
In a similar complaint, which she finds difficult to explain to her children, the six new companies formed by Vadra were involved in the dubious transfer of 23 acres of prime land near Rashtrapati Bhavan to real estate major DLF, value of which is estimated to be more than Rs 10,000 crores. Vadra’s mother Moureen Vadra and Priyanka herself were alleged to be the directors in the firm that was instrumental in materializing this deal – Blue Breeze Trading Private Limited.
This is not the first time that charges are being made against Vadra and company. The Congress government in Haryana bent rules to assign crucial land deals to Mr Vadra, Though Congress has justified it as a business deal of ‘any other individual’, it cannot be denied that this individual is linked to a high profile political family and allegedly extracted benefits out of it.
From ‘chai wala’ remark to attacking Narendra Modi on his marital status, Congress did not remember of abstaining from entering into the personal realm of a politician. Now when genuine legal-political issues involving amassing wealth of crores of rupees arose, ‘personal life’ clause is invoked.
Priyanka has also assured that the “truth” about her husband (Robert Vadra) would prevail. The whole country hopes so. But the irony with her is that though she is invoking the ability of turth, she herself is wasting time defending the 'indefensible'.
