The Congress on Saturday said the dramatic rise in the income of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah was because he allegedly delayed the mandatory filing of statement of accounts of his business firm with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for the past two years, The Hindu reported. Jay Shah was recently made the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The Congress said Jay Shah filed the statement after the Lok Sabha elections in May to hide the increase in the fortune of his company Kusum Finserv Ltd.

On Friday, a report by The Caravan said that the filings uploaded on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website and trade documents accessed by the magazine showed that the total income of Jay Shah’s firm rose to Rs 119.61 crore in 2019 from Rs 79.60 lakh in 2014.

At a press conference in the Congress headquarters in Delhi, party spokesperson Pawan Khera said Shah’s firm did not file the statement of accounts for 2017 and 2018. “If you and I had failed to do so, it would be termed an offence and a penalty of up to Rs 5 lakh would have been imposed,” he said. “This provisions does not apply to Prince Jay Amit Shah as he does not submit his accounts in 2017 nor does he do it in 2018. He waits until the Lok Sabha elections are over.”

“Now, let us see why he has to wait for the elections to be over,” Khera said. “In 2014 the annual income of Kusum Finserv Ltd was Rs 80 lakh. By 2019, the earning had gone up to Rs 119.6 crore and in 2017, it was as high as Rs 143 crore,” he said, adding that the figures were in the public domain.

“Nobody knows the type of business this company of Prince Shah of the Shah dynasty, Jai Amit Shah, does,” Khera added. “What is this business that increased their income by 15,000%? He didn’t disclose what is his business. We hear so many things that it is share trading, agro commodity trading, consultancy.”

He also sarcastically said “the magic of prince Jay Shah... may convince us that there is no slowdown. Though what business he does is not clear.”

Khera said the Congress will raise the matter during the Winter session of the Parliament.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also took a dig at Amit Shah over the increase in income of his son’s firm. “Now the story will be killed,” he tweeted. “Kanpatti pe gun laga kar.” Gandhi was referring to the phrase used by the home minister in Parliament in response to queries about the detention of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah in August. “He is free to move, there is no arrest or detention,” Shah had said. “Ab gun kanpatti par daal kar toh nahin laa sakte na [We can’t bring him here by putting a gun to his head].”

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