Sonia Better Quit India Enough of Looting

Swiss magazine Schweizer Illustrierte in 1991 claimed that Sonia was controlling accounts worth $2.2 billion in her minor son’s name(Rahul).Recent reports have calculated her financial net worth to be anywhere between $9.41 billion (Rs 42,345 crore) to $18.66 billion (Rs 83,900 crore).Harvard scholar Yevgenia Albats cited KGB correspondence about payments to Rajiv Gandhi and his family, which had been arranged by Viktor Chebrikov,which shows that KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov sought in writing an “authorization to make payments in U.S. dollars to the family members of Rajiv Gandhi, namely Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Paola Maino, mother of Sonia Gandhi” from the CPSU in December 1985.

Payments were authorized by a resolution, CPSU/CC/No 11228/3 dated 20 December 1985; and endorsed by the USSR Council of Ministers in Directive No 2633/Rs dated 20 December 1985. These payments had been coming since 1971, as payments received by Sonia Gandhi’s family and “have been audited in CPSU/CC resolution No 11187/22 OP dated 10/12/1984.[38] In 1992 the media confronted the Russian government with the Albats disclosure. The Russian government confirmed the veracity of the disclosure and defended it as necessary for “Soviet ideological interest.”

In 2004 Sonia Gandhi's party appointed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In wake of the Swiss banking report,Manmohan Singhwas the only international leader to initially refuse to receive black money data provided by the German authorities during 2008 Liechtenstein tax affair.Under pressure from the main opposition party, the Bharatiyan Janata party, the Manmoham Singh government later reluctantly agreed to accept a part of the data but stoutly refused to make it public.

This controversy had risen in the wake of the 2006 Swiss Banking Association report.

In 2010, a group of concerned eminent Indian citizens consisting of KPS Gill,Ram Jatmalani and Subash Kashyap amongst others petitioned the Supreme Court to ask the Union government to make the list of names of Indian citizens with black money in Liechtenstein Bank public. The Indian government in response refused to make the names of Indian account holders in Liechtenstein bank public. Following which the Supreme Court questioned the government’s reluctance to disclose the names of Indian nationals who have stashed black money in foreign banks, asking “what is the big deal about it?” In 2011, the Supreme court again lashed out at the government for inaction in the Swiss Bank matter.

Controversies

Gandhi's foreign birth has sparked intense debate and opposition^.Although Sonia Gandhi is actually the fifth foreign-born person to be leader of the Congress Party, she is the first since independence in 1947.

Early in her leadership, there was even criticism from within the Congress Party. In May 1999, three senior leaders of the party (Sharad Pawar, Purno.A.Sangma, and Tarig Anwar) challenged her right to try to become India's Prime Minister because of her foreign origins. In response, she offered to resign as party leader, resulting in an outpouring of support and the expulsion from the party of the three rebels who went on to form the Nationalist Congress Party.

A senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said that she surrendered her Italian passport to the Italian Embassy 27 April 1983.Italian Nationality Law did not permit dual nationality until 1992. So by acquiring Indian citizenship in 1983 she would automatically have lost Italian citizenship.

The Italian citizenship law of 1992 did open a window of opportunity for those who lost their citizenship prior to 1992 to re-register as Italian citizens until the deadline of 31 December 1997^.Sonia Gandhi has neither confirmed nor denied that she took advantage of this opportunity. At present the Government of India does not allow dual citizenship.