Cong releases another Raje document

Hard times: Party questions Modi's silence, accuses BJP of double standards

The Congress on Thursday released yet another document — “clinching evidence” — to prove that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje helped former IPL chief Lalit Modi get “leave to remain” in UK.

The Opposition party came out with a copy of an affidavit, filed by Lalit Modi before British authorities in 2011 in which he urged them to rely on the testimony of Vasundhara Raje to consider his application.

The former IPL chief named Robert Nicolls, founding partner of global security company Nicolls Steyn and Associates and Mehmood M Abidi, a lawyer from India, as other two witnesses supporting his immigration application, according to the copy of the affidavit to UK Border Agency released by the Congress.

This comes a day after the Congress released a signed version of Raje’s affidavit to UK authorities supporting Lalit’s immigration application.

“I believe it is now inescapable truth that the current chief minister of Rajasthan who was the Leader of Opposition in 2011, has given a secret witness statement in helping Lalit Modi to procure the travel documents,” Sachin Pilot, former Union minister and chief of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, told reporters here.

He questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “silence” on the issue and accused BJP of practicing “double standards”. “Why is the prime minister shying away from making any comment on it? Why the BJP is refraining from taking any action? The BJP does not take even five minutes in firing Home Secretary, Finance Secretary and External Affairs Secretary on any issue but they are not taking action against its leaders even as they are accepting their role. This shows the double standards of the BJP. They believe in one set of principles for others, and another for their own leaders,” Pilot charged.

The Congress leader reiterated his party’s demand for resignation of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj. The BJP cannot run away from the “fact” that its “top leadership” was involved in helping and abetting Lalit Modi, a fugitive, he said.  

“The prime minister’s silence and inaction, even as damning evidence emerges against the Rajasthan chief minister on almost a daily basis is understandable. It now seems clear that his colleagues in the BJP, who are now ministers and a chief minister, were working in tandem to help Lalit and were in cahoots with this fugitive friend of the BJP,” he charged, asking the prime minister and the BJP to “come clean” on the issue.

In his affidavit to British authorities, Lalit sought “leave to remain in UK” with the help of Raje and two other witnesses, arguing that he was not a “fugitive from justice in India” but a “victim of injustice”. 

He claimed that he was facing a “coordinated attack” in India at the behest of senior ministers of the Congress because of his efforts to “reform and revolutionize” cricket in India.

“There have been a number of people, including politicians, business people and cricket administrators, who have tried to hijack and take ownership of Indian cricket’s new found prominence and commercial success. 

In attempt to do so, they have jumped on the bandwagon of the political attack that has been launched against me,”  Lalit stated in his affidavit. Raje, in the affidavit released by the Congress, told the British authority that she had “absolutely no doubt” that the “full frontal attack” that Lalit Modi was facing in India was “politically motivated”.