Congress calls for sacking of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje for smooth functioning of Parliament

NEW DELHI: The Congress party on Friday sought to link Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani to former cricket administrator Lalit Modi, who’s been at the centre of political storm that has rocked the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje are said to have helped Lalit Modi, who’s wanted in India for questioning over allegations of money laundering. The Congress party called for the dismissal of Swaraj and Raje, having threatened to disrupt parliament over the issue.

“This is no longer a question of impropriety. This is now an issue of a deep nexus between a proclaimed offender (Lalit Modi) and the PM, the external affairs minister, Rajasthan CM and BJP president (Amit Shah),” Congress member Jairam Ramesh said. “The Lalit Modi-Gautam Adani nexus has also been clearly established by the documents now in the public domain.

This nexus was seeded when the PM was the president of the Gujarat Cricket Association and bloomed when the BJP president took over. If this is not crony capitalism that the finance minister speaks about all the time, what is?” The Congress party made clear that the sacking of Swaraj and Raje alone would guarantee the smooth functioning of Parliament.

ET had reported on June 18 that it was planning to launch a campaign in the monsoon session over the issue and is confident of getting the support of most opposition parties. The Left and some Janata Parivar parties have already spoken about similar intentions.

“The PM took the moral high ground on black money, corruption, transparency and accountability,” Ramesh said. “The Congress knew along that this was a cruel joke but now the entire nation is seeing the double standards, hypocrisy and brazenness of the prime minister.”