Reacting to Union minister Smriti Irani sending legal notice to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera, asking them to apologise for their "baseless and false" allegations against the BJP leader and her daughter, the party demanded to to know "for what" should they apologise.
Congress national spokesperson Shama Mohamed said there is enough evidence to show that her daughter was running the restaurant.
“For what? There is ample proof that her daughter was running the restaurant. Instead of filing defamation cases against @INCIndia leaders , @smritiirani should apologize to the nation for allegedly manipulating the licenses!,” she said in a tweet.
Congress leaders had alleged that Irani's 18-year-old daughter Zoish Irani ran a bar illegally in Goa and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi sack her from his cabinet.
Irani, on Sunday, sent a legal notice to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera, saying if they do not tender an unconditional and unequivocal apology and withdraw their allegations, she will initiate civil and criminal proceedings against them. "The false allegations were intended to hurt the reputation of our client as a minister and a person in public life, and also to outrage her modesty and that of her daughter," the notice stated.
The Congress leaders stooped to a new low, morally and ethically, by attacking Irani's young daughter who is in her first year at university and at the threshold of a new chapter of her life pursuing her professional aspirations, it read.
"The insistence of addressees to invoke value systems of our client with a reference to her 'sanskar' is an effort to make our client and her young daughter social outcasts by proclaiming that by the act of 'running' a bar our client and her young daughter are women of disrepute," the legal notice read.
—With PTI inputs