LN Mittal may bag UK honour before Blair leaves office

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair is considering honouring prominent Indian-origin businessman Lakshmi Mittal who last week made a ��2 million donation to the Labour Party. Mr Blair is reported to be debating whether Mr Mittal, who happens to be Britain���s richest man, should be included on his honours list, before he quits office.

Mr Blair has the power to award a knighthood or even a peerage to the billionaire businessman, who will be entitled to sit in the House of Lords as a Commonwealth citizen, the Daily Mail reported. The donation by Mr Mittal is the second one of the same amount he has made in the last three years.

However, opposition parties in Britain have warned that the general public would be dismayed if Mr Blair honoured Mr Mittal. Mr Mittal, who is worth nearly ��15 billion, was at the centre of one of Labour���s biggest financial scandals in 2001 when Mr Blair allegedly intervened to help him buy a Romanian steelworks firm shortly after the party took a ��125,000 million donation from him.