Rahul Gandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azad pressured me not to complain against Vijay Mallya: Shia Waqf Board chief

The allegation comes at a time when Congress has been training guns at the Bharatiya Janata Party for colluding with Vijay Mallya and helping him escape the country.

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi on Thursday claimed that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad pressured him not to complain against Vijay Mallya. Rizvi claimed that the liquor baron had encroached upon a property of the Shia Waqf Board near Meerut.

The allegation comes at a time when Congress has been training guns at the Bharatiya Janata Party for colluding with Vijay Mallya and helping him escape from the country. 

#WATCH: Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi claims that Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad put pressure on him to not complain against Vijay Mallya who Rizvi says had encroached upon a Shia Waqf Board property near Meerut. pic.twitter.com/MnJBmJZAR7 — ANI (@ANI) September 13, 2018

Congress also said that it had proof of Jaitley meeting Mallya. Senior Congress leader PL Punia in a press conference on Thursday claimed that he was a witness to the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya. 

Jaitley had denied meeting the embattled liquor baron after the latter said that he had met the senior BJP leader before leaving India in 2014.

Refuting the charges made by Mallya as "factually false," Jaitley said: ''The statement is factually false in as much as it does not reflect the truth. Since 2014, I've never given him any appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise.''

Jaitley also accused Mallya of ''misusing'' his stature as the Rajya Sabha MP. ''Vijay Mallya "misused" privilege of being Rajya Sabha MP to catch me in the corridors of Parliament on one occasion while he was walking out of the House to go to his room, '' the Finance Minister said. 

he 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airline boss had said that he met the Finance Minister before he left. "I repeated my offer to settle with the banks. That is the truth," he had said without naming the minister.