‘For them, I wasn’t the right person’: Hardeep Singh Puri rejects Rahul’s Epstein link allegations

New Delhi: Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday strongly refuted allegations raised by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi over references to his name in documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein, asserting that his interactions with the late American financier were limited and unrelated to any wrongdoing.

Responding to Gandhi’s remarks in Parliament and subsequent comments to the media, the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas said there were only “three or four references” to him in a set of nearly three million emails recently released by US authorities. He clarified that he had met Epstein “on a few occasions” over several years, and that too as part of official delegations.
 

“I met Epstein on a few occasions as part of a delegation and exchanged just one email. Our interactions had nothing to do with the crimes he is accused of,” Puri said. He added that during that period his primary engagement was with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, whom he had encouraged to visit India to explore emerging opportunities.

Referring to a November 2014 email that has been cited in the controversy, Puri said he was a private citizen at the time and had written about India’s growth prospects and initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’. He dismissed attempts to portray the email as evidence of impropriety.

“I had no interest in Epstein’s activities. For them, I was not the ‘right person’,” Puri said, claiming that Epstein had described him as “two-faced” in correspondence. He urged Rahul Gandhi to read the full context of the emails before drawing conclusions.

The minister’s response came amid a broader political row after Rahul Gandhi referred to US documents that allegedly mentioned both Puri and businessman Anil Ambani.

Earlier, the Ministry of External Affairs had also dismissed references in an email concerning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2017 visit to Israel, calling them “trashy ruminations” by a convicted criminal and asserting that such claims deserved “the utmost contempt”.

The controversy follows the recent release of a substantial tranche of records by the US Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said more than three million pages of documents, along with thousands of videos and images, were being made public. The law mandates disclosure of government files related to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death was officially ruled a suicide.