Panaji: While demanding that Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant should make a statement on the Silly Soul Café and Bar, former All India Congress Committee Secretary Girish Chodankar claimed that the company promoting this venture has links with the family members of Union Minister Smriti Irani.
Addressing a press conference in Panaji on Wednesday, Chodankar also demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should drop Irani from the cabinet for being “pathological lier.”
He said that all the records indicate that the company run by Irani’s family members was promoting Silly Soul Café and Bar, a venture that has got into the controversy over illegal Bar licence.
The Union Minister had denied having any links with the venture based in North Goa’s Assagao village.
“We demand from the chief minister of Goa who is completely silent on this issue. CM cannot remain silent any more. He is CM of the state and holding a responsible position,” Chodankar told reporters questioning whether CM was protecting his party minister.
“The issue is simple. The issue is whether Silly Soul is run by Smriti Irani’s family or not,” he said.
Chodankar said that her family is involved in this Bar where her husband and her children are also part and parcel of the company which has promoted Silly Soul Café and Bar at Assagao.
He pointed out that the address of Silly Soul Café and Bar the company called Eightall Foods and Beverages LLP is the same. The company is also sharing the same GST number as that of the controversial restaurant, Chodankar added.
“Without having clear and close connection both cannot have same address which is declared in the Registar of Cooperative Society at Maharashtra,” said Chodankar, who is former chief of Goa Pradesh Congress Committee.
He said that this firm is promoted by another family firm where Irani’s husband Zubin, daughter Zoish, son Zohr and Shenelle Irani owns Ugraya Agro Farms Private Limited and Ugraya Mercantile Private Limited. “Both the companies have promoted Eightall Foods and Beverages LLP,” he said.
Chodankar also pointed out that her daughter Zoish has given interview to a food blogger Kunal Vijaykar wherein she admits to run Silly Soul Café and Bar.
The Congress leader pointed out that even after the interview, Irani had promoted her daughter through Instagram post claiming that she is proud of her daughter.
Morever, he said, Zubin Irani’s instagram profile, as a part of his biographic details, he is claiming that Silly Soul Café are part of it.
