Lalit Modi's job offer to Swaraj Kaushal: Will new revelation cost Sushma her job?

In fresh trouble for the Modi government, two cases of alleged conflict of interest involving External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi were revealed on Wednesday.

In the first case, a letter dated 15 April, 2015 to the company secretary of Indofil, Lalit Modi sought the appointment of Sushma Swaraj’s husband Swaraj Kaushal as the alternate director of the company. The letter was subsequently withdrawn on 23 April. In a second instance, it was revealed that Swaraj Kaushal and Sushma Swaraj’s daughter Swaraj Bansuri are both legal counsels for Lalit Modi, and live with the External Affairs Minister.

The new controversy gave fresh ammunition for the Congress to target the Narendra Modi government in the escalating Lalit Modi row as the opposition party raised questions of conflict of interest and again demanded Sushma Swaraj’s resignation.

The opposition said it was “totally irrelevant” that Kaushal did not eventually accept the offer.

The Congress has put forth six demands including making public the minutes of a meeting it claimed Swaraj had with UK High Commissioner James Bevan, in which she had favoured grant of travel documents to Lalit Modi.

The party even wants the Prime Minister to answer whether any Union Minister’s relative received any job offer from Lalit Modi recently

Times Now reported that Sushma Swaraj was huddled at her residence in Lutyen’s Delhi, meeting her board of secretaries after she was pushed into a corner post the latest controversy which alleges that her husband Swaraj Kaushal was offered the position of director to alternate for the controversial former IPL chief on the board of Indofil Industries, an integrated chemical company.

“The prime minister owes it to the nation to break his silence on the issue,” senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media.

“You (PM) are maintaining a deafening silence. They (BJP) are trying to brazen it out. We demand that the silence should be broken. It is a situation wherein more you try to hide, the more the truth comes out,” Singhvi said.

He said the Modi government seemed to be espousing different rules of morality for its own ministers.

Any attempts by the “London-based Modi to divert attention from the India-based Modi would not succeed”, Singhvi said.

Documents released on Wednesday show that the former Indian Premier League chairman offered a job to Sushma’s husband Swaraj Kaushal, months after India’s external affairs minister helped the businessman obtain travel documents in the United Kingdom. Lalit, who is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate(ED) for alleged money laundering, later withdrew the offer before it could be considered by the Board. He is currently based in the UK.

Kaushal acknowledged that he had been offered a position on the Indofil board. Stating that he is a lawyer for Lalit Modi for over 20 years, Kaushal said he was offered to be alternate director on Indofil board but he did not give his consent and that the request was withdrawn.

K K Modi, Lalit’s father and CMD of Indofil, said the proposal was withdrawn before it could be brought for consideration by the board.

“So the board never considered that request. That’s the current situation,” he said. “Lalit didn’t give him (Swaraj Kaushal) power but a proposal that Kaushal be appointed as alternate director of company,” Modi said, adding “(when) he’s not on the board so where is the conflict of interest”.

“No director can be appointed without following the rules and regulations which are laid out by law,” Modi said.

But Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala trained his guns on Swaraj, asking her to come clean on the Lalit Modi issue.

“Sushma Swaraj must tell the people of the country how many times she has met Lalit Modi or if any of her family members had been in touch with the fugitive,” he said.

Surjewala demanded that the BJP government make public all letters exchanged between the previous UPA government and authorities in Britain over the Lalit Modi issue.

Taking a dig at the Modi government, the Congress leader said: “From Maulana Masood Azhar to Lalit Modi, from Kandahar to London, the NDA government has been helping such people on humanitarian grounds.”

Surjewala demanded the resignations of Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

“During the UPA government’s tenure, the Congress got the then foreign ministers Madhav Singh Solanki and Natwar Singh to resign on moral grounds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should also follow suit and demand the resignations of Sushma Swaraj and Raje on moral grounds,” he said.

Singhvi said the fact that Swaraj Kaushal did not take up the offered job was not relevant. “To have a fugitive, to have the foreign minister’s husband being offered a job is enough,” he said.

“Does this justify the prime minister’s silence? Different ministers are saying there is no stigma. There is no guilt. Who is giving this certificate of innocence? The BJP ministers,” the Congress leader said.

Questioning the clean chit to the ministers by the BJP, he said: “Has the judgment been given by the Delhi High Court? There is a direct factual evidence of deceit and avoidance in the highest echelons of government.”

BJP said the Congress has run out of ideas and is desperately “clutching at straws”.

“Very routinely people are requested to be directors, lawyers, advocates. The Congress has run out of ideas and is desperately clutching at straws,” BJP leader Nalin Kohli said.

With inputs from Agencies