New Delhi: Former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi continues to fire salvos causing jitters to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
An email leaked to the media on Wednesday has put foreign minister Sushma Swaraj in the dock once again leading to the opposition raising fresh demands for her resignation.
Months after Swaraj had helped Modi procure travel documents from the British authorities, it has come to light that Modi asked Swaraj’s husband Swaraj Kaushal to serve as alternate director on the board of one of his companies — Indofil — on his behalf.
The email, dated April 15, 2015 was addressed to the company secretary of Indofil, which is headed by his father K.K. Modi. The email was subsequently withdrawn on April 23 after Kaushal turned down the offer.
“I have been a lawyer for Lalit Modi for over 20 years. I did not give my consent to be the director,” Kaushal said.
Modi’s industrialist father K.K. Modi added further trouble to besieged Swaraj by confirming that Kaushal has been on the payroll of Indofil for quite some time while confirming the development, which is in total contrast to Swaraj’s claim that Kaushal and their daughter Bansuri Swaraj appeared in court as Modi’s lawyer free of cost as family friends. Swaraj had justified her action of helping Modi get British travel documents by saying she did it on humanitarian grounds.
K.K. Modi’s revelation that Kaushal has been on payroll of his company provided the opposition Congress party the ammunition to target the foreign minister over conflict of interest since both Kaushal and Bansuri live in with Swaraj in her official government bungalow.
Lalit Modi also dragged young BJP lawmaker Varun Gandhi into the affair on Wednesday by tweeting that Varun met him in London in the past and offered to help him get cleared of all charges of corruption and money laundering levelled against him for a price.
Modi tweeted that Varun told him that his aunt, the then ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, wanted $60 million (Dh220 million) to help him, which he could organise.
Modi’s claims of Sonia asking for a bribe to help him came just hours after the email proposing Kaushal’s appointment as director in his company became public, leading to the Congress party saying the junior (Lalit) Modi was trying to help senior (Narendra) Modi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been blamed by the opposition for keeping silent over a spate of controversies that has gripped the BJP suddenly after being in power at the centre for 13 months.
Besides Swaraj, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje is also under fire for signing an affidavit proposing immigration to Lalit Modi to the United Kingdom in 2010 after he left India following his dismissal as the IPL commissioner.
Raje confirmed that she did sign the document but had a change of heart and the document was never presented before the British court.
Undeterred by Lalit Modi throwing mud at their leader Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party on Wednesday said that Swaraj’s continuation as a federal minister had become untenable and she must step down.
“I think it’s time for the foreign minister to sing the national anthem and step down,” Congress party spokesman Tom Vadakkan said.
The BJP rejected these demands, asking how the question of conflict of interest arose when Swaraj Kaushal turned down the offer to become a director in one of Modi’s companies.
The Modi government’s decision to stand by both Swaraj and Raje may result in the upcoming monsoon session of parliament, slated to begin later this month, turning into a fiery session, which may come in the way of the government’s plans to get several key legislations including the ambitious Land Acquisition Bill passed. The BJP and its allies are in the minority in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s bicameral parliament.
