Congress fires fresh salvo against BJP President Amit Shah, his son

New Delhi, 12 Aug 2018 [Fik/News Sources]: The Congress Party on Saturday while raising new allegations against Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Amit Shah and his son Jay Shah, demanded from the Election Commission of India to cancel the former's Rajya Sabha membership.

"Amit Shah’s son Jay Amit Shah’s company Kusum Finserve LLP, whose net worth is less than Rs.6 crore, had been given credit facilities amounting to Rs.97.35 crore in five tranches from two cooperative banks and one government undertaking. Thus, the credit extended to Kusum Finserve has gone up by nearly 300% in one year", Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said while addressing a press conference in New Delhi.

Ramesh also accused Amit Shah, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in August, 2017, of omitting certain financial liabilities from his Rajya Sabha election affidavit, and said the Congress party would ask the Election Commission of India to cancel his Rajya Sabha membership.

"To secure this credit from the cooperative banks, Jay Amit Shah had mortgaged properties registered in his father Amit Shah’s name", Jairam Ramesh said.

"But, when the BJP President filed his election affidavit for Rajya Sabha poll in 2017, he did not mention anything about these liabilities", he added.

Jay Shah’s Kusum Finserve LLP had not only received “unprecedented” financial credits from these cooperative banks, but also received a loan of Rs.10.35 crore from Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA)—a public sector undertaking managed by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy—for setting up a 2.1 MW wind energy plant in Ratlam district in Madhya Pradesh, despite having no expertise, alleged Congress, according to National Herald.

According to the Representation of People’s Act, a candidate contesting for assemblies or Parliament should list their assets and liabilities in an affidavit. Under the act, filing false or incomplete information in an electoral affidavit is liable to be punished with rejection of the nomination.

The Congress also questioned why the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation gave a land worth Rs 6 crore on lease to Jay Shah who within a month got a private bank loan of Rs 17 crore against that lease.

Jay Amit Shah hit the headlines in October last year when a news portal claimed that the turnover of Temple Enterprise Private Ltd - the company owned by him, increased 16,000 times over in the year following the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister and the elevation of his father to the post of party president, filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) show.

“We need answers. Earlier, Jay Shah’s Temple Enterprises was involved in dubious dealings until it closed down. This is episode 2 of the Shah saga,” Ramesh said.