Targets Jaitley for clean chit to Lalit-Dushyant deal.
New Delhi : The Congress party has questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continued silence on the developments related to the Lalit Modi controversy.
“It is time that he answers the questions we have been asking for the past few days. The credibility of his government is at stake, and every day more ministers are getting entangled in this controversy,” said senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Azad, who is the leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, urged the prime minister to respond expeditiously lest his credibility too comes under cloud. “There have been contradictory signals in the recent past about the government’s approach to this whole controversy,” he added.
He cited the fact that the Enforcement Directorate had submitted on oath that it would take the matter to a logical conclusion. ‘‘But then the finance minister Arun Jaitley has said that this is a simple business transaction between Lalit Modi and the Rajasthan chief minister’s son. How can a minister in-charge of the ED give a clan chit when the matter is pending in the court,” he added.
The Congress leader observed that this way more ministers would have to resign. “The Finance Minister is influencing the ED in the matter of Vasundhra Raje’s son and the Lalit Modi case. The way more names are coming up in the scandal, more people will have to resign for an unbiased investigation,” he added.
The party has already decided to make things difficult for the government in the monsoon session of Parliament and Azad is expected to lead the attack.
Indicating that the ambit of the attack would not be restricted to the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and the Rajashthan chief minister Vasundhararaje Scindia, Azad said: “Everyday new scandals are being exposed and yet the Prime Minister is silent on this.
So isn’t the Prime Minister party to all of this? We want to ask the Prime Minister if Swaraj and Scindia are not guilty under various laws and sections. “Barring the prime minister’s continued silence on the subject, there is hardly any counter strategy on the part of the BJP, even though this controversy has been simmering for most of the last week.
