Swamy questions Tarun Bajaj’s appointment as DEA secretary and calls him Robert Vadra’s ‘chela’
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New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Subramanian Swamy on Monday questioned Tarun Bajaj’s appointment as secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) – which is the latest of his criticisms of senior officials in the Ministry of Finance.
The DEA reports to the Ministry of Finance.
Bajaj, Additional Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), was appointed DEA secretary on Sunday by the Union Cabinet Appointments Committee. He will assume his new functions from May 1.
An officer in Haryana cadres in 1988, Bajaj joined the list of senior finance ministry officials such as Hasmukh Adhia and Shaktikanta Das (now RBI governor), who were the recipients of Swamy’s rant.
Request the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Swamy in a tweet alleged that Bajaj was a ‘chela‘(disciple) of Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Acting Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.
He further alleged that as a textile secretary in 2017, Bajaj gave a contract to NDTV, following which the “PM intervened and canceled it”.
however, official registers maintained by the Personnel and Training Department showed that Bajaj was in PMO from 2015, first as deputy secretary, then as additional secretary. It is not mentioned that he was secretary at the textile ministry in 2017.
In his tweet, Swamy also questioned whether officials are taking advantage of the Prime Minister’s “total absorption” by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read also : Subramanian Swamy: On the economy, Modi relies on friends and ministers who don’t tell him the truth
Swamy’s attacks on RBI Governor Jaitley, Sitharaman
In recent years, Swamy has often criticized people associated with the Ministry of Finance, including former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, former Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia and the Governor of the RBI Das, who had previously been secretary of the DEA. .
Swamy was one of Jaitley’s greatest reviews and accused him of mismanagement of the economy. He was too critical of the initial setting of the GSTN – the technological backbone of the GST – as a private enterprise.
In 2018, Swamy had accused Adhia for helping fugitive jewelers Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi flee the country, among several other allegations. Adhia is a cadre from Gujarat, who is said to be close to Modi.
In 2016, Swamy had accused RBI Governor Das, who was then secretary of the DEA, to be part of a controversial land deal in Chennai.
Swamy didn’t spare Sitharaman either. A few months after taking office as Minister of Finance, Swamy said she doesn’t understand economics.
He was too criticism of a decision taken last year to “automatically retire” Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, an agent of the income tax service, who had led the investigation against NDTV and former Minister of Finance P. Chidambaram.
Read also : Subramanian Swamy writes to Prime Minister Modi on COVID-19, says economic relief plan is crucial
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