The multi-crore PNB scam attained stronger political connotations on Saturday with the BJP dragging in senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleging his family’s links with the absconding billionaire jewellery designer Nirav Modi. Singhvi promptly denied the allegations and announced his intentions to take up legal recourse against BJP leader and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, whom the BJP had fielded to take on the Congress.
Sitharaman alleged that Nirav Modi-run Firestar Diamond International had taken on lease a property of Adwait Holdings, a company in which Singhvi’s wife Anita is a Director. “What is important that the premises has been used by Firestar Diamond International,” she alleged.
“Firestar Diamond International Pvt ltd is one of the companies that Nirav Modi runs.
They’ve taken on lease property which belongs to Advait Holding ltd in Trade Point Building in lower Parel. From 2002, Anita Singhvi is one of the shareholders. You know whose wife she’s. And also has Avishkar Manas Singhvi, possibly his son. But wife of one of the senior Congress leaders is here as a property shareholder, she is a director by designation," she alleged.
Singhvi denied any links of his family with Nirav Modi and Gitanjali Group promoter Mehul Choksi and charged the BJP with playing "cheap politics". "BJP/NDA’s cheap sense of politics has reached ludicrous and ridiculous proportions. Neither my wife, sons nor me have anything whatsoever to do with Gitanjali or Nirav Modi companies," he said in a statement.
Singhvi clarified that Nirav Modi’s company was a tenant of a Kamla Mills property owned by Adwait Holdings in which his wife and sons are directors. "I reserve my rights to take all such appropriate legal action against the latter and all parts of the media which carry such false and maliciously defamatory allegations," Singhvi said.