A day after the Supreme Court was informed that liquor baron Mallya has already left the country –probably to UK –he has actually been hunted down there. The world’s most famous can be seen at the Madame Tussauds wax museum on Baker Street in the heart of London. Two buildings away is the home of industrialist Vijay Mallya.
He may be staying there in his palatial house Ladywalk even as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday that he has learned from the CBI that Mallya had left on Mar 2.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday lashed out at Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for not telling the Parliament as to how liquor baron Vijay Mallya managed to flee the country and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to bring back black money stashed in safe havens abroad.
Gandhi said that the Finance Minister spoke at length over this issue in Parliament, but failed to answer the basic question as to how Mallya left the country.
“Before becoming the PM, he (Narendra Modi) said that he would get back black money and deposit Rs. 15 lakh in bank accounts. Not even a rupee was paid. And now Mallya has run away with Rs. 9000 crores. We asked Jaitley ji, how Mallya ji left the nation,” Gandhi told the media here.
“He left the nation, but Jaitley ji did not answer that. He gave a lengthy speech, but the question was how this government allowed him to escape, there was no answer on that,” he added.
Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad charged the BJP-led government of being a part and party in the conspiracy behind allowing Mallya to flee.
“Why was he not arrested? He was being interrogated by several agencies. Why wasn’t his passport taken away? He is a tall and well-endowed man and travels with a whole cavalcade. How can he disappear?” Azad said.
Hitting back, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that for 10 years, till 2014, the Congress turned a blind eye towards recovering the loans from Mallya.
“Banks are taking all steps to recover every paisa taken from them,” Jaitley said and questioned how former IPL boss Lalit Modi was allowed to leave the country.
The Parliament witnessed a major uproar following Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi’s statement that Mallya left the country on March 2 and could be in the UK.
