T he Congress on Monday upped the ante against the BJP Government with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi directly accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of protecting and facilitating travel documents from UK authorities for former IPl commissioner lalit Modi. “Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj should be sacked. There is only one man running this country and Government that is Narendra Modi. Modi should stop protecting lalit Modi,” Rahul said in Chhattisgarh when asked for his comments on issue.
Escalating its attack, the Congress charged the entire BJP and the Government with “aiding and abetting” the “fugitive” lalit Modi with “tacit approval” of the Prime Minister. The party also contended that a criminal case has been made out against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in helping the former IPl boss get travel documents to go out of the UK and sought an FIR registered against her. Under attack on lalit Modi issue, Swaraj hit back at a TV journalist who had raked up the issue of propriety in the matter. “look who is preaching propriety — of all the persons...,” Swaraj tweeted. She also functioned from her office Jawahar Bhawan during the day.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, however, gave a different spin to the turn of events and said the whole affair has brought to fore the internal differences in the Government as Finance Ministry under Arun Jaitley was probing cases against lalit Modi while the Foreign Minister was helping him. Nitish also said only preliminary details have come out in the media reports and claimed that much more skeletons will tumble out.
Apparently hinting that Swaraj’s conduct could be a setback to the case being pursued by the ED against lalit Modi, Nitish claimed that Swaraj must not have consulted the agency, a part of the Union Finance Ministry, before helping out the former IPl Commissioner. Kumar said that it was not clear to him whether the External Affairs Minister had taken the consent of her colleague and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in helping out Modi.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram demanded the release of letters written to the British Government in the lalit Modi case. “In the interest of transparency, Government of India should release the letters written to the UK Chancellor on the lalit Modi case,” Chidambaram tweeted. More than two years ago as Finance Minister, Chidambaram had asked the British Government why it was not taking action against the former IPl chief, who had taken refuge in london, after he was accused of a wide range of financial impropriety, including money laundering.
Chidambaram had taken up the issue during his meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in 2013. He had wanted Britain to deport him as Modi’s passport was impounded in India and his UK visa had run out. While opposition parties barring Samajwadi Party (SP) which has extended support to Swaraj, mounted pressure on the Government to take action against Swaraj, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan came out in defence of his senior party colleague. NDA ally Shiv Sena too backed Swaraj and said she was being targeted to “destabilise” the Modi dispensation. The MP CM said that Swaraj’s “entire life has been transparent and is above all suspicions”.
AICC spokesman Randeep Surjewala said it is a matter to be examined whether Swaraj was acting at the instance of the Prime Minister and whether he was “a party in helping a fugitive and money-launderer”. Making a video presentation at the AICC briefing, the party displayed three photographs of lalit Modi with the Prime Minister and BJP chief Amit Shah before the two leaders assumed their present offices to make a point about his association with them. Swaraj’s predecessor Salman Khurshid said that BJP was making its case “worse” by hiding facts and asked the Centre to come out with truth.
While BSP chief Mayawati said she was not surprised with the row, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury demanded that the Prime Minister tell the nation how the matter is going to be addressed, terming the charge against the MEA very serious. Aam Aadmi Party dragged the PMO into the row, alleging “PMO may have been in the loop”.