Priyanka Gandhi Vadra

NEW DELHI:  In five years of controversy over her husband's alleged land deals in Haryana when the Congress was in power, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has clarified for the first time that she had "no relationship whatsoever" with the finances of Robert Vadra or his company Skylight Hospitality.

In a statement put out by her office last evening, Ms Vadra, the 45-year-old daughter of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, said she was responding to the questions of a journalist from a leading newspaper "in relation to my husband in which it was alleged that I had acquired properties with illegally acquired funds".

Ms Vadra denied any links to the deal involving a 3.5-acre plot in Gurgaon that her husband bought in 2008 and sold just three months later at a huge profit to India's largest real estate developer, DLF. 

That deal, exposed when bureaucrat Ashok Khemka cancelled it in 2012, has been investigated along with several other land deals by retired Supreme Court Justice SN Dhingra.

A business newspaper reported this morning that people familiar with the Dhingra Commission's findings - which have not been made public - say Ms Vadra's land purchase is mentioned.

Ms Vadra in her clarification denied that she used a part of the money from the Skylight-DLF deal to buy land in Faridabad in Haryana.

She referred to five acres she bought in Amipur in Haryana's Faridabad - she said it was bought six years before Mr Vadra's controversial deal - and said she paid Rs. 15 lakhs, entirely by cheque, using rent money from a property she had inherited from her grandmother Indira Gandhi, former prime minister.

"The source of funds for this or any other property acquired by Smt Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has no relationship whatsoever with Shri Robert Vadra's finances and/or Skylight Hospitality and no relationship whatsoever with DLF."

Ms Vadra said she had resold the land to the original owner four years later for Rs. 80 lakh, the market price at the time.

"Any allegations made by the Economic Times in this purported article and/or any headline which besmirches the reputation of Smt Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will appear to be based upon certain questionable documents and represent a deliberate, politically motivated and malicious campaign to besmirch and destroy her reputation. They will be entirely false, utterly baseless and defamatory," said the statement.