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Jayanthi's charges against Rahul baseless: Digvijaya
Allegations by former central minister Jayanthi Natarajan that Congress
vice president Rahul Gandhi had interfered in the functioning of the
environment ministry were baseless, party general secretary Digvijaya
Singh said Friday.
"It's absolutely wrong to say that our
president Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi ever interfered in the
functioning of the UPA government. The ministers were free to take
decisions," he told reporters on the margins of a party meeting here.
Natarajan,
who quit the party earlier in the day, had accused Rahul Gandhi of
interfering in her ministry's functioning when she was the central
environment and forests minister in the UPA-2 government. She levelled
the charges in a letter she wrote to Sonia Gandhi recently.
Singh
however refuted the claim. "One thing I know is that Rahul will be the
last person to interfere in the functioning of any ministry. Therefore, I
think this kind of allegations by someone who got everything in life
from Congress is uncalled for," he said after chairing a meeting of the
party's state unit coordination committee.
He also recalled Prime
Minister Narendra Modi making a veiled reference to the removal of
Natarajan from the ministry in December 2013 and saying he had heard of
"Jayanthi tax", referring to allegations against her during her tenure.
"She
(Natarajan) has to clarify whether Modi's allegations are correct or
not. Rahul Gandhi would have become a minister if he wanted to involve
himself with a ministry," he added.