Priyanka Gandhi demands Puri’s exit over Epstein email links

A fresh political storm has erupted after Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called for the resignation of Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, citing his past interactions with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Priyanka alleged that Puri had corresponded with Epstein even after serious allegations against the financier were in the public domain. “In my opinion, he should resign,” she said, referring to documents recently released by the US Department of Justice.

The controversy intensified a day after Puri acknowledged that he had met Epstein “three or four times” over an eight-year period while he was based in New York. The meetings, he maintained, were strictly professional.

Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution-related charges including soliciting a minor, was arrested again in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors. He died in a Manhattan jail cell later that year while awaiting trial; his death was officially ruled a suicide.

The latest tranche of documents released by the US Department of Justice on January 30 indicates that Puri exchanged emails with Epstein during 2014–15 — a period after Epstein’s 2008 conviction had already drawn global attention.

Puri, however, has rejected any insinuation of impropriety. Addressing a press conference, he said his interactions were limited and professional in nature. “There are references to only three or four meetings, and all my interactions were entirely professional, related to the Independent Commission on Multilateralism and other international work,” he said.

The minister also pushed back against remarks by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who had raised his name in connection with the Epstein disclosures.

According to Puri, he met Epstein during his tenure as India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations between 2009 and 2013, and later while working with the International Peace Institute’s Independent Commission on Multilateralism following his retirement from the Indian Foreign Service in 2013, before joining the Union Cabinet in 2017.

With fresh documents now in the public domain and the Opposition sharpening its attack, the issue threatens to snowball into a broader political confrontation, placing the government on the defensive over questions of judgment, timing and transparency.