Stepping up its attack on the BJP government, the Congress on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately sack External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the wake of fresh revelations that fugitive former IPL chief Lalit Modi had offered a job to her advocate husband Swaraj Kaushal.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “There is now clear material to show that Lalit Modi offered a job to close relative of Foreign Minister.”
There is a complete direct factual web of deceit and avoidance and at the highest assurance of Government. Does it not directly establish a nexus? Singhvi asked.
Coming down heavily on the BJP government, Singhvi said, “You are having on one hand deafening silence and on the other casual clean chits. This can’t go. People of India want an answer.”
The fresh attack from Congress came shortly after it appeared in media that months after Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj helped Lalit Modi get urgent travel documents in the UK, the former IPL chief asked her husband, Swaraj Kaushal, to serve as his back-up on the board of one of his companies, Indofil.
Media reports quoted an email sent in April by Lalit Modi in which he had asked Swaraj’s husband to be an Alternate Director, implying that Kaushal would fill in for him at board meetings.
However, Kaushal, who has for years been one of Lalit Modi’s lawyers, later refused the offer.
In an interview to a news channel, Kaushal said, “I have been a lawyer for Lalit Modi for over 20 years. I was offered to be an Alternate Director on Indofil Board. I did not given my consent to be the director. The request was withdrawn.”
