It has come to light that Congress government, over decades, changed rules to allot free land to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation
Bengaluru: Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has been in the news for accepting donations from various people, including government ministries.
As reported by a popular website, the Congress governments in the past had changed the rules of allotment of government land in Lutyens Delhi to benefit the Gandhis and the trusts controlled by the family.
The website takes the help of a report by Times Now that stated that an ongoing high-level probe on the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has exposed a convenient arrangement that saw Gandhi family virtually taking over government lands through various trusts including the RGF.
The Times Now report, the website adds, also stated that the rules for the land allotted by the then Indira Gandhi-led government in 1975 for the construction of the Congress party headquarters was eventually violated and altered for the benefit of the Gandhi family and the trusts managed by them. The Congress party, however, did not construct the headquarters at the two-acres land but changed the land allotment rules to lease government lands for free to Gandhis.
It is also of importance to note that the ministry of home affairs had set up an inter-ministerial committee to probe various violations by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust & Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust.
As the probe is underway, Sudhir Chaudhary, Editor-in-Chief of Zee News had put out a tweet, displaying the names of donors to the foundation in the year 2007-08.
He notes, “It includes union ministries, PSUs, private firms, individuals and tainted companies. Why were all of them so keen to donate to RGF? There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Are there “free” donations?”
The list also includes ministries like health and family welfare, environment and forest and small scale industries.
It is to be noted that the issue of Congress signing a deal with Communist Party of China in 2008 has become a big issue. It was signed in Beijing for exchanging high-level information and co-operation between them.
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