As the BJP defended Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and ruled out her resignation as well as that of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, the Congress stepped up its attack, alleging a “deep nexus” between Lalit Modi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
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The Congress had so far been alleging that Swaraj’s act of helping Lalit Modi, against whom a light blue corner notice issued by the DRI was pending, was with the “express approval” of the PM. On Friday, it went a step further, alleging the existence of a “Lalit Modi-Gautam Adani” nexus, the seeds of which were sown by the PM when he was the president of Gujarat Cricket Association.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh claimed the PM was in a state of “Lalitaasana” and asked him to come out of it and make both Raje and Swaraj resign to save his government.
“This is no longer a question of impropriety. This is now an issue of a deep nexus between a proclaimed offender against whom the Enforcement Directorate has cases pending and the Prime Minister, the External Affairs Minister, Rajasthan Chief Minister and the BJP president,” Ramesh said.
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He alleged that the “Lalit Modi-Gautam Adani nexus has been clearly established by documents now in the public domain”. This nexus, he alleged, was “seeded when the PM was the president of Gujarat Cricket Association and bloomed when the BJP president took over. If this is not crony capitalism…, what is?”
He said ever since the controversy broke out, the PM has shut his “eyes, ears, nose and mouth”.
Ramesh did not divulge much details to back his claim of a nexus. He merely said Adani was appointed commercial promoter of the GCA by Modi when he was its president. Modi, he said, became the president of GCA in 2009. He said Adani is still the commercial promoter and Shah is the GCA president. “This nexus is between the bada Modi and chhota Modi,” he said.