NEW DELHI: The Congress targeted unions ministers Nitin Gadkari and Suresh Prabhu saying the case of Gadkari’s aide’s company receiving government funds marked conflict of interest.
“How can Nitin Gadkari permit his own ministry and PSUs to participate and financially contribute to a company that is 50 percent owned by his PS Vaibhav Dange,” Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said at an AICC briefing.
“Dange violated Central Civil Service (Conduct) Rules, which prohibit a public servant from accepting contributions and associating with raising of any funds or collections or cash,” he said.
Both Gadkari and commerce minister Suresh Prabhu were part of the National Executive Committee of Indian Federation of Green Energy owned by Vaibhav Dange, who happens to be an RSS ideologue, said Ramesh.
The Congress attack came on a day the government announced dates for the winter session of parliament.
Recently the Congress had flagged another conflict of interest issue saying four central ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Jayant Sinha, Prabhu and MJ Akbar were serving as directors in an NGO run by Shaurya Doval, son of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. The Congress will highlight the issue during the parliament session, said Ramesh.
Dange floated his company on October 9, 2014 along with Motiram Kisanrao Patil with a paid up capital of Rs.1 lakh only and zero cash and has built up a corpus of Rs.1.33 crore, Ramesh said.
According to the Congress leader, the said company organizes conclaves and programmes with PSUs and ministries under Gadkari’s control and receives financial contributions from private persons/corporate entities attending/sponsoring these events and who deal directly with the ministries controlled by Gadkari.
“This becomes even more serious as Dange deals directly with all the ministries and PSUs’ related issues as also private entities in his capacity as PS to the union cabinet minister,” Ramesh added.