BJP MP and former Union minister Subramanian Swamy has claimed that senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi are to lose their Indian citizenship soon.
While delivering a lecture on “CAA – a historical imperative beyond contemporary politics” at an event organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad at the University of Hyderabad Thursday, the BJP MP said: “The file is on the Home Minister Amit Shah’s table and soon they will lose their citizenship.”
Referring to the rules of the Indian constitution, Swamy said that people taking the citizenship of another country while being an Indian citizen will automatically lose their Indian citizenship.
Swamy added that Rahul Gandhi can apply for Indian citizenship as his father (Rajiv Gandhi) was an Indian. But, the Congress leader cannot apply using his mother, Sonia Gandhi’s credentials who he claimed was not an Indian national.
Speaking at the event in Hyderabad, the BJP senior leader claimed that Rahul Gandhi had taken British citizenship to start a business in England.
In fact, on April 30 last year, MHA had reportedly issued a notice to Congress President Rahul Gandhi over the citizenship controversy which surfaced back in 2015. The Home Ministry had, in the notice issued then, cited documents of the British company BackOps where Rahul Gandhi filed returns as a British citizen.
This notice by the MHA was issued after a complaint was filed with the ministry by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy.
The citizenship row began in 2015 when Swamy cited documents pertaining to a company Backops Limited where Rahul Gandhi was the Director. In the said documents, the Congress President’s nationality was mentioned as British. Since then, the matter has been a cause of great dispute.
In November 2015, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by lawyer M.L. Sharma demanding a CBI enquiry into the matter. The highest court of the country deemed the petition ‘frivolous’. The following year in January, another BJP MP Maheish Girri filed a complaint with the Lok Sabha speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, regarding Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship. As per the rules, she forwarded it to the Ethics Committee.
Two months later, in March, the Ethics Committee headed by veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi over the matter but nothing much came of it. It was later reported that not a single meeting was held in this regard. Since then, the matter was in a political potboiler until last year when an independent candidate from Amethi filed a complaint with the Election Commission over the matter. The EC, however, found no reason to disqualify the Congress President.
On April 30, 2019, it was reported that a notice has been sent to Rahul Gandhi by the MHA following a complaint by Subramaniam Swamy.
It may be noted that as per Section 3(a) of the Citizenship Act, any person born in India between 26 January 1950 and 1 July 1987 are Indian citizens, regardless of the citizenship of the parents. For persons born after 1 July 1987, anyone of the parents needs to be Indian citizen, and after 2003, both the parents must be Indian citizens. Rahul Gandhi was born in New Delhi in June 1970.
