PM Narendra Modi Will Back Sushma Swaraj, Say BJP Sources
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will back Sushma Swaraj, BJP sources have told amid huge row over the foreign minister’s decision to help controversial former Indian Premier League boss Lalit Modi obtain British travel papers.
“It is a cricket battle,” said BJP sources, indicating that Sushma Swaraj may have been caught up in the war within India’s cricket board, which removed Lalit Modi for corruption charges in 2013.Sushma Swaraj has been facing calls for her resignation for intervening on Lalit Modi’s behalf and asking British officials to examine his request for travel abroad when his passport was being held by Indian authorities.
Ms Swaraj has asserted that she helped Lalit Modi on “humanitarian grounds” so that he could be with his wife during her cancer surgery in Portugal in August last year. The Congress today mocked the minister’s reason, calling it a “tearjerker.”Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said: “Lalit Modi reached Portugal on August 4. From August 8, he and his wife were holidaying in Ibiza.”
He added that it was “clear from day 1 that not just Sushma Swaraj, at the highest level the government wanted to help Lalit Modi. It wasn’t their duty to get him back to India. They are protecting and helping this person.”The Congress also questioned why top officials were unaware about Ms Swaraj’s move to clear Lalit Modi’s travel. “If this is something humanitarian, how come the foreign secretary and senior officials were kept in the dark?” asked Mr Sharma.
“I have no idea about this case. I don’t recall a single paper related to this,” According to sources Sujatha Singh, who was foreign secretary at the time Lalit Modi got travel papers in July, has told. Ms Singh was asked to quit in January this year, five months before her tenure was to end.
The opposition has questioned why the government never appealed against that court order to restore Lalit Modi’s passport despite a blue corner notice against him, which means that his whereabouts have to be known to the government and investigators at all times.
