BJP cautious as Congress steps up pressure over Goa restaurant

Two days after the Congress attacked Union Minister Smriti Irani over an alleged scam in the allotment of a liquor licence to a restaurant linked to her daughter Zoish, the BJP in Goa on Monday tried to downplay the issue.

After the Congress, both in Goa and the national capital, claimed that the restaurant 'Silly Souls', located in upmarket Assagao, was serving alcohol based on a liquor licence renewed in favour of a dead person, state BJP president Sadanand Shet Tanavade claimed that he had not seen the documents linked to the controversy.

"As per information received, there is no document mentioning her name. I have not seen those documents and have no details. I will check the details," the top state BJP official said.

While stating that Irani had already issued a clarification over the issue, Tanavade also said since the minister has approached the courts over the issue, "it is not appropriate that I comment on it".

Smriti had sent a legal notice to Congress party leaders Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera, demanding an apology from the duo for levelling "baseless and false" allegations against her and Zoish.

Her daughter's legal team has also issued a clarification stating that she has no links to the restaurant.

Incidentally, Zoish, in a television interview for a popular food blogger Kunal Vijaykar three months ago, acknowledged that she runs the restaurant, which is now in the eye of controversy.

Meanwhile, the Congress in Goa continued to mount political pressure over the issue, with Youth Congress workers staging a dharna outside the restaurant in Assagao.

State Youth Congress president Varad Mardolkar claimed that the restaurant management had masked the word 'bar' from the display sign outside the premise.

"They had placed a black tape over the word bar. They are trying to cover up the issue. We took the tape off," Mardolkar said.

After Right to Information activist Aires Rodrigues first time raised the issue of the restaurant's liquor licence being allotted to a dead person, state Excise Commissioner Narayan Gad issued a show-cause notice to the restaurant's management.

Interestingly, the development occurred at a time when two Goa government agencies, the crime branch of the Goa Police and the Town and Country Planning department are probing land frauds in the state, where signatures of dead people have been incorporated into land sale documents.