FM Arun Jaitley's "clean chit" to Vasundhara Raje's son a "cover-up": Congress

NEW DELHI: A day after finance minister Arun Jaitley termed the alleged Lalit Modi-Dushyant Singh money transaction as a mere "commercial" deal, Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, produced a document in which Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Enforcement Directorate, had given a commitment to the Delhi High Court that the deal would be investigated.

On the basis of the January 6, 2015, document, Azad alleged "a cover-up" bid by the NDA regime and insisted Jaitley’s "clean chit" would influence the ED probe.

"While the finance ministry and ED are examining these apparently patent black money dealings and transfer of ill-gotten money through fictitious companies, statement of finance minister yesterday (Sunday) in Washington, giving a clean-chit to Vasundhara Raje and her son Dushyant, is evidence of blatant, yet shoddy, coverup of the black-money transactions being done by the BJP leadership, including the finance minister," Azad alleged.

Azad, who was also in touch with the Left and Janata Parivar leaders for a united Opposition attack in the next Parliament session, said, "The PM remains mum on the issue. Laboured and weakkneed defence put up by BJP leaders, including senior ministers Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, DV Sadananda Gowda and Nitin Gadkari, has found a few takers and is totally unconvincing.