Bengaluru: Allegations by former central minister Jayanthi Natarajan that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had interfered in the functioning of the environment ministry were baseless, party general secretary Digvijay Singh said Friday, after attending the Congress Co-ordination Committee meeting at the Party Office on Queen’s Road.
“It’s absolutely wrong to say that our president Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi ever interfered in the functioning of the UPA government. The ministers were free to take decisions,” he told reporters on the margins of a party meeting here.
Natarajan, who quit the party earlier in the day, had accused Rahul Gandhi of interfering in her ministry’s functioning when she was the central environment and forests minister in the UPA-2 government. She levelled the charges in a letter she wrote to Sonia Gandhi recently.
Singh however refuted the claim. “One thing I know is that Rahul will be the last person to interfere in the functioning of any ministry. Therefore, I think this kind of allegations by someone who got everything in life from Congress is uncalled for,” he said after chairing a meeting of the party’s state unit coordination committee.
He also recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi making a veiled reference to the removal of Natarajan from the ministry in December 2013 and saying he had heard of “Jayanthi tax”, referring to allegations against her during her tenure.
“Natarajan has to clarify whether Modi’s allegations are correct or not. Rahul Gandhi would have become a minister if he wanted to involve himself with a ministry,” he added.
Earlier the meeting was chaired by AICC General Secretary and Party’s Karnataka in-Charge Digvijay Singh and attended by Chief Minister Siddharamaiah, KPCC President Dr. G. Parameshwar, Home Minister K.J. George and Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar among others.
Digvijay Singh also held one-on-one meeting with all Ministers of the Cabinet also a day-long meetings with the newly-appointed Chairman and Chairpersons of various State-run Boards and Corporations was held to chalk out programmes to strengthen the Party in the State in the wake of growing onslaught from the BJP.
