BJP alleges Rs 7-crore ‘ticket extortion’ bid by Gandhi family in Haryana

NEW DELHI, March 3: The BJP on Tuesday cited a reported claim of a former Haryana Congress leader’s husband to allege that the Gandhi family tried to “extort” Rs 7 crore from the couple in exchange for an Assembly poll ticket in the state.
BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari claimed that Gaurav Kumar, the husband of a former Haryana Mahila Congress general secretary, has made public WhatsApp chats involving personal assistants of senior Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. He described the chats as “prima-facie proof” of the Gandhi family’s “corruption”.
Bhandari, however, did not disclose the name of the former Haryana Mahila Congress leader or clarify whether the allegation pertained to the 2024 Assembly polls in the state.
There was no immediate reaction from the Congress to the BJP’s charge.
Talking to reporters at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters here, Bhandari said, “For the last few days, the country has been discussing how the Gandhi-Vadra family is compromised and corrupt. Today, we are presenting before you a prima-facie proof of corruption by Priyanka Vadra, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.” He claimed that Kumar has brought to light how the Gandhi family tried to extort Rs 7 crore from the couple in exchange for giving his wife a party ticket from the Bawal Assembly seat.
“At a press conference, he (Kumar) has made public WhatsApp chats with the PAs (personal assistants) of Priyanka Vadra, K C Venugopal and K Suresh, exposing how the Gandhi family used Venugopal as a front to extort money from the former general secretary of the Haryana Mahila Congress,” Bhandari said.
He claimed that the Gandhi family’s silence on the issue is nothing but an “admission of guilt”.
BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi said Kumar’s claim “proves” that the Congress is “corrupt to the core”.
Earlier, former Punjab Congress leader Navjot Kaur Sidhu had said at least an amount of Rs 500 crore is needed for the chief minister’s post in the Congress, Trivedi, who is also a BJP spokesperson, said.
“Margaret Alva’s book says seats in Karnataka in 2008 were open to bid. Now this recent expose from Keralam (Kerala) proves that from government to organisation and from Punjab to Keralam, the character of Congress is corrupt to the core,” he said in a post on X.
Trivedi claimed that a Malayalam television channel is in possession of WhatsApp chats of Congress leaders that corroborate the BJP’s allegations.
Latching on to the reported claims of Kumar, another BJP MP Sambit Patra alleged that the Congress has “officially” turned from a political organisation into a “shopping mall, where democracy is for sale to the highest bidder”.
“This is the real face of the Congress culture where every seat has a price tag and every loyal worker is just a target for their greed. From the corridors of Janpath to the tickets in Haryana this party has turned into a collection centre for the elite few while the common man is left betrayed,” Patra said in a post on X.
The people of Haryana have already seen through this “parchi-kharchi system” and they will never allow “this loot and lie factory” to return to power, he said.The Gandhi family’s silence on the allegations is a “loud confession” of its guilt, Patra added. (PTI)