No individual meeting between Lalit Modi and Swaraj: Reports

 "No individual meeting with Lalit Modi," said the sources in  Sushma Swaraj's office, reported the channel. 

 

There was no meeting between Swaraj and Modi in London, it reported quoting sources.

 

Swaraj is angry that her daughter, a lawyer, was also dragged into the controversy, said reports. 

 

At the centre of a raging controversy involving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bigwigs who reportedly helped him travel in Europe, former Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi said he was taken to task by the former UPA government for no reason though even some ministers of that government had helped him, a claim that was denied by the leaders he named.

While in a twist to the row over Lalit Modi, it is reported that besides External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rajasthan Chief Minister  Vasundhara Raje had helped Modi's  application for immigration to the UK in 2011 too, from his present holiday destination Montenegro,  Modi  in an interview to India Today TV channel on Tuesday said that Raje had accompanied his wife to Portugal for her cancer treatment two years ago.  

"Raje and Sushma supported me when my wife was sick," he told the channel.  "My wife was being taken to Portugal by whom? By Mrs Vasundhara Raje. Nobody knows that, I am putting that on record now,"  Modi said, adding she accompanied his wife Minal in 2012 and 2013.

On Sushma Swaraj, he said, "It was a family, a legal whatever you may call it. We were very close. But the point is not that...I am very close to a lot of politicians, not only Mrs Swaraj."

He said he also got the assistance of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel and Congress leader Rajiv Shukla.

According to NDTV, while Shukla said he had not talked to  Modi for three years, Pawar said he tried to convince Modi to return to India and face investigations.
   
Modi said: "At the end I have done nothing wrong. I've gone by book. I have been over-criticised, have been taken to task by the (UPA) government for no reason for all."

All opposition parties have mounted up pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central  government to sack Sushma Swaraj if she does not resign herself after the External Affairs Minister has been caught up in a huge controversy over helping helping Lalit Modi, who is accused of financial irregularities in the game, procure travel documents in the UK last year.

The External Affairs Minister on Sunday defended herself and said she helped convey his request to the British envoy 'taking a humanitarian view.'

Lalit Modi has been in the UK since 2010 when the IPL courted controversy over an alleged betting scandal.

Lalit Modi's passport was revoked in March that year.

However, Lalit Modi was given a visa after Indian-origin British MP Keith Vaz recommended his name.

According to the British media, Vaz said Swaraj had pressurised UK's top immigration official to grant British travel papers to Lalit Modi.