Rahul should expel Chidambaram from Cong: Uttarakhand CM

Dehradun: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to expel senior leader and former union minister P Chidambaram from the party, alleging that he and his family have stashed money abroad.

“Chidambaram did not give the Enforcement Directorate information about 15 bank accounts in foreign countries where the former finance minister and his family stashed away over three billion dollars. Will Rahul Gandhi throw him out of the party?” Rawat told reporters here yesterday.

Rawat, a BJP leader, claimed that during the erstwhile UPA dispensation, the Supreme Court had issued an order to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) on black money stashed aboard, but the then government did not set it up to shield the corrupt. Drawing a comparison between UPA and the current NDA dispensation at the Centre, he said the Narendra Modi government constituted the SIT at the very first meeting of its cabinet.

“If the Congress has even an iota of morality left in it, Rahul Gandhi should expel Chidambaram from the party, ” the chief minister said. The Income Tax department on May 11 filed charge sheets against Chidambaram’s wife Nalini, son Karti, daughter-in-law Srinidhi and a firm under the Black Money Act for allegedly not disclosing their foreign assets.

Nalini Chidambaram, Karti and Srinidhi and a firm linked to Karti have been accused of not disclosing, either partly or fully, immovable assets such as one at Barton, Cambridge, UK, worth Rs 5.37 crore, property worth Rs 80 lakh in the same country and assets worth Rs 3.28 crore in the US.

The former finance minister’s family members had said the Income Tax Department charge sheets against them under the black money law were “baseless allegations” as the overseas investments under question had been reflected in their I-T returns.