Sushma-Lalit Modi row: BJP says Congress "political bankrupt"

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday hit back at the Congress party for releasing pictures of Narendra Modi with Lalit Modi and alleged that it showed “political bankruptcy” and “cheap politics” of the opposition party in a bid to embroil the PM in the row involving External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Defending Swaraj, the BJP instead accused Congress of attempting to “make a mountain out of a molehill” and raking up “non-issues” and instead questioned Rahul Gandhi as to where he had gone on a sabbatical and on whose visa.

Swaraj has been accused of helping former Lalit Modi, IPL boss, get travel documents to go out of the UK and sought an FIR registered against her.

The BJP said if the Congress wants to indulge in such a slugfest, it can also produce hundreds of photos of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi allegedly with the accused in various scams like the Coal, 2G spectrum, Commonwealth Games and Aircel-Maxis deal.

“It is the bankruptcy of Congress politics to show a picture of a part of stadium of an IPL cricket match of 2010 in Ahmedabad and to show the photo in 2015 is the bankrupcy of ideas of Congress....Congress is doing cheap politics,” Union Minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar told the media on Monday.

Countering Congress for its charges, he said “efforts are on to ‘make a mountian out of a molehill’. We also want to ask: let Congress answer where their leader had gone on the vacation and on what visa. Congress should also answer on which visa their leader had gone on leave and where.”

The minister said the photo showing the prime minister and BJP chief Amit Shah with Lalit Modi is at a public match when he was heading the Gujarat Cricket Association and there was no case against the IPL chairman at the time.

“It was a public cricket match and there was no accusation against Lalit Modi at that time,” Javadekar said, adding if this is the case and logic on which Congress wants to build, then there are hundreds of pictures of Jyotiradiya Scindia with IPL chairman that time as well as with Rajiv Shukla.

On Congress' charge that Lalit Modi was a fugitive, he questioned who was ruling when he became a fugitive and said it was during the United Progressive Alliance rule that he turned into one.

“It was during your government's time when he left the country. In your government's time, (Warren) Anderson (former CEO of erstwhile Union Carbide in Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984) also left the country. This is Congress' record. This shows complete bankruptcy of ideas and politics of Congress. They have no issue. They want to highlight non-issue and convert it into an issue,” he said.