New Delhi, June 24 (The Telegraph): The BJP, landed with another blow after a court today admitted a petition against Union minister Smriti Irani for "misrepresenting" her educational qualification, cited the example of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul to defend the "mistake".
The HRD minister is in the dock for listing different educational qualifications in different election affidavits - BA in one affidavit and BCom Part I, through correspondence, in two others.
The Congress called for Smriti's sacking, a demand echoed by the Aam Admi Party whose minister Jitender Singh Tomar was arrested earlier this month on charges of faking his law degree.
The BJP, already grappling with the charges against Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje, said there was nothing "extraordinary" or "catastrophic" about what Smritihad done and argued that Sonia and Rahul too had given such "wrong" information in the past.
Spokesperson Sambit Patra, fielded by the BJP to speak up for its swelling ranks of controversial women leaders, said: "The minister's lawyer (Anil Soni) has already stated that she has not been summoned and, therefore, she is not accused."
Patra recalled that in 2004, the Supreme Court had refused to admit a writ petition by the then Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who is now in the BJP, seeking action against Sonia Gandhi for filing a "false affidavit" about her educational qualification.
The Congress president, in her nomination papers from Rae Bareli, was alleged to have said in her first affidavit that she had completed a certificate course in English from the Lennox Cook School, Cambridge University.
Swamy in his plea claimed that she had studied at one of the small "teaching shops" in Cambridge, not at Cambridge University.
The two-judge division bench asked Swamy: "Should the Supreme Court go into all the affidavits to find out they are false or not? Further investigation is not possible into a stale issue and it should be dropped."
Sonia subsequently amended her affidavit to state that she had done a certificate course in English from Lennox Cook School, Cambridge.
Rahul Gandhi, in his 2004 affidavit, said he had obtained an MPhil in development economics in 1995 from Trinity College, Cambridge. In 2014, he listed his qualification as MPhil in development studies. Development economics was part of the development studies course.
Patra today said: "Both the Gandhi cases hold out precedents for Smritiji. She erroneously mentioned herself as a BA degree holder. She corrected it later like Rahul Gandhi did and said she had done the first year of BCom. Such mistakes occur. If the court takes a lenient view in one (Sonia's) case, what is exceptional about Smritiji?" asked Patra.
However, BJP sources admitted that Patra's "two-wrongs-make-a-right" line of argument would not go down well with their supporters who "voted us because we claimed to be a party with a difference that would offer governance with a difference".
