November 06, 2024 08:35 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy booked for threatening cop probing into mining case | Supreme Court upholds validity of Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Act | Not all private properties are community resources that govt can take over: Supreme Court | Pakistan's Lahore has become world's most polluted city with an AQI of 1900 on Sunday | Indian Army 'successfully completes' patrolling to a key point in Ladakh's Depsang region

Congress demands Sushma, Raje resignations

| | 17 Jun 2015, 10:52 am
New Delhi, June 17 (IBNS): Congress leader Shobha Oza on Wednesday said External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje should resign for helping former Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi, who is now in UK, to travel in Europe despite he being wanted in India to face the law over IPL irregularities.
 
"Sushma Swaraj and Raje should resign," she said accusing the Narendra Modi government of backing the tainted people. 
 
She said the leaders have been exposed and they should step down immediately. 
 
She said Congress is not anti-woman in demanding two woman leaders' resignation and said on the contrary it is BJP which is anti-woman under the influence of RSS. 
 
At the centre of a raging controversy involving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bigwigs who reportedly helped him travel in Europe, former Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi said he was taken to task by the former UPA government for no reason though even some ministers of that government had helped him, a claim that was denied by the leaders he named.

While in a twist to the row over Lalit Modi, it is reported that besides External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan Chief Minister  Vasundhara Raje had helped Modi's  application for immigration to the UK in 2011 too, from his present holiday destination Montenegro,  Modi  in an interview to India Today TV channel on Tuesday said that Raje had accompanied his wife to Portugal for her cancer treatment two years ago.  

"Raje and Sushma supported me when my wife was sick," he told the channel.  "My wife was being taken to Portugal by whom? By Mrs Vasundhara Raje. Nobody knows that, I am putting that on record now,"  Modi said, adding she accompanied his wife Minal in 2012 and 2013.

On Sushma Swaraj, he said, "It was a family, a legal whatever you may call it. We were very close. But the point is not that...I am very close to a lot of politicians, not only Mrs Swaraj."

He said he also got the assistance of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel and Congress leader Rajiv Shukla.

According to NDTV, while Shukla said he had not talked to  Modi for three years, Pawar said he tried to convince Modi to return to India and face investigations.
   
Modi said: "At the end I have done nothing wrong. I've gone by book. I have been over-criticised, have been taken to task by the (UPA) government for no reason for all."

All opposition parties have mounted up pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central  government to sack Sushma Swaraj if she does not resign herself after the External Affairs Minister has been caught up in a huge controversy over helping helping Lalit Modi, who is accused of financial irregularities in the game, procure travel documents in the UK last year.

The External Affairs Minister on Sunday defended herself and said she helped convey his request to the British envoy 'taking a humanitarian view.'

Lalit Modi has been in the UK since 2010 when the IPL courted controversy over an alleged betting scandal.

Lalit Modi's passport was revoked in March that year.

However, Lalit Modi was given a visa after Indian-origin British MP Keith Vaz recommended his name.

According to the British media, Vaz said Swaraj had pressurised UK's top immigration official to grant British travel papers to Lalit Modi.
 
 

 

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.