19 June 2001

GEORGE DROPPED FROM SONIA ENTOURAGE BECAUSE OF CBI CASE

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: Congress President Sonia Gandhi has dropped her private secretary V George from her 3-week long foreign tour to the United States and other countries that begins on Wednesday and instead picked up her additional private secretary S V Pillai to accompany her.

George has been almost a permanent fixture attached to Sonia Gandhi whenever she goes abroad but the pending case registered by the CBI against him for possessing property disproportionate to his income has come in the way of accompanying her, sources at 10 Janpath disclosed.

Sonia Gandhi's fear in trying to take George along was that the CBI can impound his passport because of the pending case and that may mean a bad publicity for her foreign tour even before she starts off. The accused in the CBI cases are usually asked to surrender their passports. George has not been told to do so but nobody knows when the CBI makes the demand, the sources added. END