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LONDON: Indian-origin selfmade millionaire Dr Rami Ranger and Tory peer Baroness Verma have rescinded an invitation to Congress president Rahul Gandhi during his trip to London saying the event had been cancelled. The Congress president will be here on August 24 and 25 for meetings with the Indian diaspora, politicians and business leaders but he will no longer be attending an event in Parliament hosted by the Conservative Friends of India.

Ranger, co-chairman of the Conservative Friends of India, had sent out invites for the event he was meant to be hosting with India-born Conservative life peer Baroness Verma at Portcullis House, the building that houses the offices of MPs, on August 24. TOI has seen the invitation to the event which Gandhi is advertised as addressing. UK politicians and prominent Indian businessmen had been sent invitations. But on Thursday TOI learnt the event had been cancelled.

Now Labour MP Keith Vaz, the longest-serving British Indian MP, has sponsored a room elsewhere in Parliament and Indian Overseas Congress ( IOC ) has taken over running the event.

IOC UK spokesperson Gurminder Randhawa said: “The Conservative Friends of India have dropped out. It is not being hosted by them anymore so we are now running it.” Kamal Dhaliwal, IOC UK president, said: “The Conservative Friends of India pulled out because they had so much pressure put on them by the BJP. They have sent the invitation out so why are they cancelling it? Baroness Verma is good friends with Jaitley and she attended all the Modi events when he was here in April. We heard that once they had sent the invites out they kept getting pressure from the BJP. We understand that Baroness Verma pulled out at the weekend and the others did not know this on Monday. They approached a few other Conservative MPs to sponsor a room but because of the pressure no one wanted to.”

When questioned , Ranger confirmed Conservative Friends of India was no longer hosting it: “I don’t know what’s happened,” he said on Thursday. But on Monday Ranger had insisted it was going ahead, branding claims it was not as “fake news”. But by Thursday Huggins sent a text message to TOI saying: “You’re right, as Parliament is in recess, booking rooms within Portcullis House has proved problematic — to a point where we can’t guarantee the room — hence have had to cancel the event.”

But on the invitation, which TOI has seen, a room had been booked.

