New Delhi | Union minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday termed questions raised on Rahul Gandhi's foreign trips and their funding as "very serious", and asked the Congress leader to disclose the details of his travels with concerned authorities to avoid action for any violation of law.
This came a day after the ruling BJP raised questions on Gandhi's foreign trips and demanded the disclosure of their source of funding, claiming that there is a clear mismatch between the year-on-year annual income of the Congress leader and the money spent on his travel abroad.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, party national spokesperson Sambit Patra said Gandhi went on 54 foreign trips in the last 22 years, on which a cumulative expenditure of Rs 60 crore was incurred. However, his year-on-year annual income, as disclosed in his poll affidavits in the last 10 years, remained about Rs 11 crore altogether, the BJP leader claimed.
Commenting on the issue, Rijiju said the questions raised on Gandhi's foreign tours are "very serious".
"My request to Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party is that (you) please follow the rules and provide the requisite information to the authorities… Tomorrow, if anything happens, if some actions are initiated, then the government should not be blamed for targeting Rahulji," the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs told reporters here.
Rijiju said every Member of Parliament (MP) is required to inform the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariat three weeks in advance for their foreign visits.
He said they should also inform the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) about their foreign trips if they accept foreign hospitality and travel expenditure is to be borne by some agencies or organisations.
Section 6 of the FCRA Act 2010 clearly stipulates how an MP should inform the MHA and also the MEA of their foreign hospitality which they accept, Rijiju said
"So, if you are spending much more than your known source of income, then it is a matter of income tax rules. And if you accept the foreign hospitality without informing the MHA under Section 6 of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), then there are penalty provisions," he said.
Rijiju said Gandhi's "unannounced" foreign visits are in "multiple numbers".
"The recent matter which came to the public domain about his sudden visit to Muscat without informing anybody… the Congress party has not given any kind of clarification for that," he said.
"Whether it's a visit to Thailand or Vietnam, I think Rahul Gandhi, being the Leader of Opposition should disclose it. Why is he visiting all these places? There is no restriction for any MP to visit anywhere," he said.
"But you must inform who are the people who invited you and what expenditure was incurred by those agencies and organisations outside India," the minister added.
