Priyanka Gandhi demands ‘unqualified apology’ from a daily

Lawyer of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday demanded an “unqualified apology” from the editor of leading daily The Times of India for carrying out a story on her official accommodation.

The legal notice addressed to the Editor in Chief of Times of India, Jaideep Bose, says that the journalist “appears to have completely lost sight of the incontrovertible facts in his eagerness to publish a sensational but false and defamatory story in a hasty fashion”. 

“The entire tone, tenor and phraseology of your news article are misleading and are laden with premeditated fatal misstatements or inaccuracies,” the notice sent by her lawyer Aman Panwar claims.

"My client calls upon your esteemed publication to tender an unqualified apology and publish the contents of this letter in its entirety with the same prominence and display as you have done to the patently false and malicious captioned news article. This letter is being sent without prejudice to any rights and contentions of my client and nothing contained herein should be considered an admission of any fact or a waiver of any of the rights and remedies of my client," said the letter.

The daily had recently carried out a report that the daughter of the former prime minister had influenced to reduce the rent of house from Rs.53,421 a month to Rs.8,888 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in power in 2002.

The report carried out following a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by Devashish Bhattacharya, a resident of Noida. 

The daily had reported that Vadra had written to the government in May 2002 that Rs.53,421 was “too high” an amount and “beyond her paying capacity”.

Her office said that she has been regularly paying her rent as per the fee decided by the government.