Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi denies charges, says wife, son have no links to Nirav Modi

In response, Singhvi stated that BJP and NDA’s “cheap” sense of politics has reached ridiculous proportions. “Neither my wife, sons nor me has anything whatsoever to do with Gitanjali or Nirav Modi companies. Nirav Modi’s company was a tenant of a Kamla Mills property owned by Adwait Holdings, in which my wife and sons are a director. Adwait Holdings owns a commercial property at Parel, as it does elsewhere, which was rented by Firestone many years ago. Neither Adwait nor my family has any interest with Modi or Firestone. Last August Firestone gave notice to quit tenancy and vacated the Parel Kamla Mills premises in December 2017,” he said in a statement.

Singhvi repeated, “Neither I nor any member of my family has any interest in or relation to Nirav Modi or his companies…” He said that sensationalism, ignorance and falsehood had exceeded all limits in this irresponsible charge. “Sitharaman and her colleagues are liable to civil and criminal defamation for making ill-considered, ignorant and patently false allegations. I reserve my rights to take all such appropriate legal action against the latter, and all parts of the media which carry such false and maliciously defamatory allegations.”

Sitharaman, speaking to mediapersons, said, “So, all the inheritance and goodness, legacy and property, everything is yours, par aarop hamare upar daal rahe ho (but you level allegations at us). You are the beneficiary, you are the promoter, you are the one who leased the building for rent, you are the one who is getting rent or possibly getting anything else, you promote Gitanjali jewels, you give them the building on rent, your wife is a director in it, you appointed a director and made the director also resign because he spoke against the restructuring of loans for Nirav Modi’s company and then Rs 1,500-odd crore is given out of record, the minutes of the dissent are not even there, dissent note does not even go on the minutes, the finance minister does not even question why this man Dubey has to go instantly, what are the reasons for removing a director you nominated on the board…. You do it all.”

Sitharaman said Congress’s allegations were not just against the present government but the party is misleading the people She said that evergreening of Letters of Undertaking kept happening — “the man who did it quietly for you was allowed to retire. And we have taken action… The original sin in that particular episode of Nirav Modi and PNB was indeed committed in 2011.”