BJP asks Raje to explain documents

The BJP has asked beleaguered Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to explain her stand on the Lalit Modi issue after Congress released a signed version of her secret affidavit supporting the controversial former IPL chief’s immigration bid in the United Kingdom.

Central BJP leaders wanted Raje to state whether the documents were authentic.Sources in the BJP said the party has now asked Raje to explain the signed affidavit, which was shown by former Union minister Jairam Ramesh.

When the documents were released first by Lalit Modi’s lawyer and PR firm, Raje had dismissed them, saying she did not know what they were though she knew the family well. Raje denied any knowledge of the documents after Lalit Modi, who now lives in London, said in television that the politician had sought a legal guarantee of confidentiality for her statement.

But, the documents released by the Congress showed that in a signed statement, Raje described the investigation against Lalit as “a full frontal attack” that was “politically motivated.”

Raje has found herself in the centre of a growing political storm since the charge was that between 2008 and 2009,  Lalit Modi paid Rs 96,000 per share in a company owned by her son Dushyant Singh. But in his income tax returns for 2013, Singh declared that his shares in the same firm were worth just Rs 10 each.