Thakur targets Congress over FATF study involving Priyanka Gandhi
Union minister Anurag Thakur on Monday hit out at the Congress after the FATF recently published a report Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Art and Antiquities Market, claiming that a case study mentioned in it involved party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Union information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Anurag Thakur on Monday hit out at the Congress after the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – global watchdog that deals with anti-money laundering measures related to terror financing – recently published a report Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Art and Antiquities Market, claiming that a case study mentioned in it involved party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
“Till now, the media and people used to discuss the FATF only for the fact that whether Pakistan will remain in the grey list or will go even further. Now, the same FATF is being discussed again in context of an influential family of the country,” he said.
Targeting the Congress and the Gandhi family, he said: “One after another, new models of Congress’s corruption are coming to the fore. Sometimes it is National Herald, sometimes Vadra land scam, sometimes some another. Now, FATF has published a case study that how a former Union Minister in the UPA government pressurised an individual to buy a painting from Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for ₹2 crore.”
Thakur was referring to an ongoing anti-money laundering case wherein Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor recently told the Enforcement Directorate that he was “forced” to buy an M F Husain painting from Priyanka and that the sale proceeds were utilised by the Gandhi family for the medical treatment of Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New York.At the time the Congress termed the allegations “disgusting” .
“It is a matter of great shame that the story of corruption of the Gandhi family is made into a case study and being told to the whole world, that too by an organisation that works to stop terror financing,” Thakur said. To be sure, the FATF report is put together with inputs sent from member countries, which means the concerned law enforcement agency in this case must have sent in the case study, which goes on top detail how the payoff also involved a Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honour. In the course of his interrogation by ED, Kapoor had mentioned this too.
Thakur sought to know if “Padma Bhushan was being given in exchange of money & painting?” “Is this a corruption model of Congress? How many other national honours have you sold for money?” he asked.
