Hitting out at Narendra Modi after the Home Ministry issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi on his citizenship status, the Congress Tuesday termed him a "failed" Prime Minister who is desperate to "manufacture one false allegation everyday".
Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala claimed that Modi has no answer on unemployment, agrarian distress and black money, and hence he is resorting to "fake narrative" through his government's notices to divert attention.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lost the plot. After four phases of elections, it is clear that Modiji and the BJP are hurtling towards an imminent defeat at a breakneck speed. Consequently, they seek to manufacture one malicious and fallacious agenda everyday," he said at a press conference.
The Home Ministry has served a notice to Gandhi, asking him to clarify within a fortnight his "factual position" on a complaint questioning his citizenship status.
In the letter, the Home Ministry said it has received a representation from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in which it has been brought out that a company named Backops Limited was registered in the United Kingdom in 2003 with Gandhi as one of its directors.
The Home Ministry said Swamy's letter also mentioned that in the British company's annual returns filed on October 10, 2005 and October 31, 2006, Gandhi's date of birth has been given as June 19, 1970 and his nationality as British.
Surjewala said these are "rehashed allegations" from the year 2014-15 that were rejected back then.
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The entire set of allegations are based on alleged citizenship title given in a certificate of incorporation of a company called the Backops limited of which Rahul Gandhi was once a director, he said.
Surjewala, displaying some document, said the fourth page therein shows that Rahul Gandhi is an Indian.
"Rahul Gandhi is an Indian by birth. Everybody knows about the sacrifices his family has made for the country -- three generations thereof," he said.
In Amethi, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra came to the defence of her brother and said the MHA notice was a "rubbish". "It seems that it is out of fear that they might be losing," she said, attacking the ruling party.
Surjewala said that the same allegations, using the same documents, were levelled against Rahul Gandhi in a litigation filed in the Supreme Court.
The petition came up for hearing in the Supreme Court on November 30, 2015, and was dismissed, he said. "Is the MHA now bigger than the SC? Does the BJP not accept the decision of the highest court now?"
"The truth is that such myopic, petty, malicious and fallacious allegations will not divert the agenda (from real issues). People will not stop asking you questions Mr Modi as to where are the jobs, what about the agrarian distress and the rural distress, what about the 8 lakh crore black money that was to come within a 100 days, Rs 15 lakh that was to be deposited in every Indians account...," he said.
The truth is that having "failed" on every front, a "failed" Prime Minister is desperate to manufacture one false allegation a day, the Congress spokesperson said.
"The Modi government should be renamed as a desperate government manufacturing one allegation per day, but your fake allegations will not replace the truth," he asserted.
In November 2015, the Supreme Court had dismissed a public interest litigation seeking a CBI investigation into the citizenship of Gandhi while noting that PILs are not meant to target one individual or organisation but was a medium to resolve human suffering through good governance.
A bench of then Chief Justice of India H L Dattu and justice Amitava Roy had rubbished the plea questioning the source and authenticity of the documents attached to the petition.
In 2016, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had forwarded to the Parliamentary Ethics Committee, headed by veteran BJP leader L K Advani, Swamy's "complaint of ethical misconduct" against Gandhi that he had accessed documents in which the Congress leader had called himself "British".
In his reply to the ethics committee on the allegations of British citizenship, Gandhi had said he had never "sought or acquired British citizenship" and that his "identity is that of an Indian".
Gandhi also questioned the committee's decision to look into a "complaint that is not in order", claiming it was "an endeavour to malign" him.
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