The Congress party on Saturday asked PM Modi to immediately sack Union Minister Smriti Irani as her 18-year-old daughter was allegedly running an “illegal" bar in Goa, even as the minister rejected the claim and said the first-year college student was being targeted because of her mother’s vocal stand on Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s “Rs 5,000 crore loot" in the National Herald case.
Asserting that the Congress has “assassinated" and “publicly mutilated" her daughter’s character, the Union minister dared the party to furnish proof of any wrongdoing. The BJP leader also said that she will seek answers “in the court of law, and the court of people".
The Congress party has alleged that Zoish Irani was running an illegal bar in Goa and using her political influence to harass Excise Commissioner Narayan M Gad, who has served a show-cause notice on the unit for July 29.
Congress chief spokesperson and general secretary Jairam Ramesh, along with media chairman Pawan Khera and All-India Mahila Congress President Netta D'Souza of Gujarat, told a Press conference that the license was only for running a restaurant, but Irani's daughter used her political clout to obtain licenses in February last year to serve foreign, India-made foreign and country liquor, and that too in the name of a person who is no more. She even got the licenses renewed last month.
It is claimed that the illegality of the bar licenses came out in an RTI (Right to Information) application filed by activist advocate Aires Rodrigues, whose complaint forced the excise commissioner to issue the show-cause notice.
Rodrigues has challenged the renewal of the license for retail sale of liquor in the name of one Anthony Dgama, a resident of Vile Parle, Mumbai, despite the fact that he actually died on May 17 last year and a license cannot be issued to a dead person.
Smriti’s daughter Zoish on Saturday denied the Congress charge and said that she was neither an owner nor operating the restaurant. Releasing her statement, advocate Kirat Nagra said: "Our client is neither an owner nor operating the restaurant called Silly Souls Goa. Furthermore, she has not received any show cause notice from any authority whatsoever as alleged."
"My client, a young eighteen year old student and a budding chef who has worked in various restaurants to learn culinary arts, is sought to be scarred in perpetuity by her mother's political opponents," Nagra said.
Youth Congress President B V Srinivas countered both mother and daughter, sharing a video interview of Zoish, speaking about international cuisines and new restaurants opening in Goa. "Some members of BJP are shamelessly claiming that the owner of the bar is not the daughter of Tulsi ji. This video is for them."
Meanwhile, Rodrigues is insistent that a show-cause notice has been indeed served on the bar and restaurant. "So, at the hearing on July 29th, we would know about the ghost who runs the show," he said. His reference was to the license renewed last month in the name of Anthony Dgama, who died in Mumbai on May 17 last year.
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