"Bhagoda" Jibe for Lalit Modi by BJP"s RK Singh Could Embarrass Party

New Delhi:  The BJP has defended two top leaders for meeting with and helping Lalit Modi, wanted in India for a grave assortment of corruption cases. But today, party lawmaker RK Singh who served as the country’s Home Secretary, offered a strong note of dissent.

“Helping a ‘bhagoda‘ (fugitive) is wrong, no matter who helped him… he (Modi) should be brought back and made to face trial,” said Mr Singh. He also said the government that is led by his party must appeal to have Mr Modi’s Indian passport revoked.

Mr Singh’s comments come as Mumbai’s top cop, Rakesh Maria, has been forced to furnish a detailed explanation for meeting with Mr Modi last year in London. Mr Maria met with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis last night to defend his actions. In public, he has said that Mr Modi’s lawyer organised the meeting where the entrepreneur sought assistance against alleged death threats from the underworld, and that he urged Mr Modi to return to Mumbai to face the charges against him. (Read Rakesh Maria’s Full Statement on Meeting with Lalit Modi in London)

Mr Modi founded the multi-billion dollar and glamorous Indian Premier League in 2008, but left for London in 2010 after getting entangled in a slew of cases that linked India’s richest sports league to tax evasion and money-laundering.

The government cancelled Mr Modi’s passport in 2010, but the Delhi High Court revoked that decision in August last year.

The government was forced into an awkward corner earlier this month with the disclosure that Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje supported Mr Modi’s appeal for emergency travel documents and immigration to the UK. The ruling BJP has supported both leaders; the opposition Congress has said that it will not allow the Monsoon session of Parliament to function unless both women resign.