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NRI draws flak for donations to Labour

Yet another non-resident Indian is being targeted in the British media for his donation to the Labour Party months before he was appointed to a key post in the Prime Minister's Office.

Arnab Banerji, a senior investment fund manager, was appointed last year to the Prime Minster's Forward Strategy Unit along with Lord Birt, the former BBC director general.

According to reports Banerji had donated more than £5,000 to the Labour Party months before being given the post. Banerji quit his job at the PMO last week for a "senior post in the public sector."

Banerji was chairman of group investment policy at F&C, formerly Foreign and Colonial, and was credited with overseeing its success in recent years.

Theresa May, chairman of the Tory party, has asked the government to reveal what Banerji had been doing in Downing Street.

"Yet again, we have someone who gives Labour a large donation and is then given a major say over policy and ... the opportunity of a senior government job. It's this sort of thing that makes the public cynical," she said.

A spokesman of the PMO refused to comment on the issue.

Earlier in the year, steel baron Lakshmi Mittal was also charged with paying a huge sum to the party for getting Blair government's approval for a a £2.3 million grant for a company owned by him (Mittal).

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