Cornered Congress says, Rahul Gandhi's 'British citizenship' row a typo error

Two days after rubbishing BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's claim that Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi had declared himself British citizen in an annual return of his dissolved company Backops Limited, a cornered Congress on Wednesday admitted it could have been a "typographical" error, by an accountant, responsible for filing returns.

While in company documents and other annual returns, Rahul is declared as Indian, but consistently in three returns of 2005, 2006 and 2009, he is mentioned as "British" with a UK residential address.

Swamy on Wednesday, asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to register an FIR against the Congress vice- president, "For setting up a company in Britain, if he is an Indian citizen and has not informed the Indian Government under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act), then he is subjected to prosecution. If he has not declared it in his affidavit as a candidate for Lok Sabha, not once but twice, then he is subjected to prosecution and even removal from his membership on that basis," Swamy had said.

Subramaniam Swamy

I have produced documents, submitted by the company in which Rahul Gandhi is the 65 percent shareholder, director and company secretary. He is informing the registrar of companies on his annual return that he is a citizen of Britain in writing, not for one year, but four years in a row,"

But Congress rubbished the allegations, saying Rahul has held Indian citizenship and an Indian passport and has never held citizenship of any other country nor has he represented as such. Though, the party released company document, incorporated in Britain in August 2003, clearly showing Rahul as an Indian, but it was taken aback at three annual return documents.

Another spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi, to volly of questions, admitted, "this could be a typographical error at some lower level."

Congress also denied Dr Swamy's allegations that Rahul held an account in Pictet Bank, Zurich and was ever detained at Logan Airport in Boston with undeclared cash. Singhvi even challenged the government to probe these allegations.

According to Section 9 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 any citizen of India, who by registration, naturalisation or otherwise voluntarily takes the citizenship of another country, shall upon such acquisition cease to be a citizen of India.

Wrong timing

The allegation, even a typo-error has hit the party at a very bad time. Basking in glory after Bihar poll verdict, the party was planning to raise the pitch further against the Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje for signing an affidavit in UK for fallen cricket czar Lalit Modi. Swamy in his tweet, even alleged that Backops was a shell company, which had received kick backs in Indian defence deals. Earlier, the senior BJP leader asked Rahul to release all the documents that he has in his possession regarding his 'citizenship'.