RSS targets Rahul, ‘lies’ cries Congress
The political warfare between the Congress and the Sangh Parivar is getting acrimonious by the day.
As if the daily bitter exchanges between the two sides were not enough the RSS mouthpiece Organiser has indulged in a bit of investigative journalism and come out with a claim that the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was on a sabbatical for a bulk of the budget session to an undisclosed destination, has claimed his salary and allowances for the period as the member of the Lok Sabha.
The Organiser wrote: ”As there are questions again about Rahul Gandhi’s disappearance from the national scene, the official documents accessed by Organiser show that he has availed his salary and allowances without any work during the budget session. This raises many technical and moral issues about the conduct of a leader, claiming to be pro-poor.”
It added: “It pays to be a Gandhi. Ask Rahul Gandhi, the 44-year-old scion of the Gandhi dynasty. While common persons would be stripped of their salary for being absent from office for 56 days Rahul Gandhi not only gets his salary, he has not even docked a single day’s pay.”
The Congress reacted angrily to these references and party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala described it as a “patent lie.” In a statement, he said: “Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi did not draw any daily allowance during the period when he did not attend Parliament. To impute otherwise, as is being sought to be done by the RSS in a diabolical fashion, is a patent lie.
“If RSS is still beholden to parading its lies, it would be well advised to first question its pracharak prime minister, its ministers and the BJP/ NDA MPs about the reasons
for not foregoing pay and allowances for the period during which they did not attend Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha sessions…,” he observed. Surjewala said that this “vicious tirade by RSS is unleashed on a regular basis against individuals and organisations who stand to challenge their fascist thought process”, and lamented that under the BJP government, India’s polity is “being bloodied on a daily basis”. The Congress leader said that the salary and allowances of MPs are governed by the Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members of Parliament Act, 1954. Section 3 provides for payment of a salary of Rs 50,000 per month to all Lok Sabha MPs during their entire term of office of five years. In addition, an MP is entitled to an allowance of Rs 2,000 per day on which he/she is present and signs the register maintained by Parliament’s Secretariat when Parliament is in session.