MHA notice on Rahul's citizenship is Bakwas: Priyanka

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday called the union home ministry's notice to Congress president Rahul Gandhi "trash," asking him to clarify if he was an Indian citizen.

''Bakwas hai sab... sara Hindustan janta hai ki Rahul Hindustani hain... logon ne dekha hai ki woh yehin paida hue aur bade hue,'' (Its all trash... the whole of India knows that Rahul is an Indian... all of us have seen that he was born and brought up here), Priyanka told reporters in Amethi.

She said that the BJP might have done this out of fear of losing. ''May be they (BJP) are scared of losing,'' the Congress leader, who was campaigning for Rahul in Amethi, said.

Priyanka also rubbished the contention that she did not contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat fearing that she might lose.

''I did not pull out... it was the decision of the party that I should focus on campaigning in the eastern UP region of which I am in-charge... there are 41 LS constituencies where I have to campaign,'' she said.

The union home ministry has issued a notice to Rahul seeking his clarification on the charge that he, in documents filed before the British government, said that he was a citizen of Britain.

While union home minister Rajnath Singh said that the notice was part of an established procedure, the Congress has slammed the notice and called it as a ''diversionary tactic'' by the BJP.