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Smriti Irani hits back as Congress alleges her daughter is linked to Goa bar fraud
Union minister Smriti Irani on Saturday rubbished Congress allegations against her daughter and said an 18-year-old girl’s character had been assassinated because her mother fought the Lok Sabha election against Rahul Gandhi.
Union minister Smriti Irani on Saturday rubbished Congress allegations against her daughter and said an 18-year-old girl’s character had been assassinated because her mother fought the Lok Sabha election against Rahul Gandhi. Irani was responding to a Congress charge that a Goa restaurant her daughter was involved in the running of, Silly Souls Café and Bar, Assagao, got its excise licence fraudulently and got two bar licences when regulations allow only one.
Irani said her daughter did not run any bar, and was a first-year college student.
“An 18-year-old child, a college student, her character today was assassinated by Congress men at a Congress headquarters... her fault is that her mother fought the Lok Sabha election against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi in 2014, in 2019... her fault is that her mother, as has been said by the Congress spokesperson, does press conferences against Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. The allegation that my daughter runs an illegal bar is malicious with the intent not only to assassinate her character but also to politically malign me,” Irani said.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera told reporters there were “serious charges of corruption” against Irani’s family. “The licence is in the name of a person who died in May 2021, and the licence was taken in June 2022 in Goa. But the person in whose name the licence is had died 13 months ago. This is illegal,” he said.
Khera said according to Goa rules, a restaurant can get only one bar licence but this one had two. The Congress made the allegations based on an RTI (right to information) query from Goa-based lawyer Aires Rodrigues, saying the excise licence for Silly Souls Café and Bar was registered in the name of Anthony D’ Gama and was submitted in his name on June 22, 2022 for renewal, despite his death in May 2021. Following a formal complaint by Rodrigues, the Goa Excise Department issued a show-cause notice to Anthony D’Gama at the restaurant to reply within seven days why the licence should not be cancelled. A hearing is scheduled on July 29.
Irani said her daughter had nothing to do with the restaurant, and said the papers Congress leaders were pointing to did not mention the name of her daughter. “It is done at the directions of the Congress leadership, namely the Gandhi family, because I had the audacity to hold a press conference and question Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for the ₹5,000 crore loot of the Indian treasury... I will see them in a court of law.”
Khera took to Twitter to share a news article that said that in April 2022, a food writer posted a glowing review of the restaurant, wherein he interviews Irani’s daughter at “her place” (the restaurant), which in turn the Union minister had posted on social media. “Which Smriti Zubin Irani is lying? The one who on 14th April 2022 said she was proud of her daughter’s restaurant or the one who today says her daughter has nothing to do with the Silly Souls Bar & Cafe?” Khera tweeted.
Kirat Nagra, lawyer for Irani’s daughter, said his client is neither an owner nor operating the restaurant. “My client, a young 18-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 who with oblique and ulterior motive seek to malign her,” Nagra said.
The Congress said it will take up the matter in Parliament on Monday. The party’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh said, “This issue will definitely arise on Monday afternoon; the Prime Minister should immediately take the resignation of Smriti Zubin Irani from the Cabinet.”
