Lalit Modi Wanted Sushma Swaraj"s Husband On His Board, Was Turned Down

New Delhi:  Months after Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj helped tainted cricket tycoon Lalit Modi get urgent travel documents in the UK, the entrepreneur asked her husband, Swaraj Kaushal, to serve as his back-up on the board of one of his companies, Indofil.

NDTV has accessed an email sent in April by Mr Modi in which he asks the minister’s husband to be an Alternate Director, which means Mr Kaushal would fill in for him at board meetings. Mr Kaushal, who has for years been one of Mr Modi’s lawyers, refused the officer. But the Opposition Congress says the fact that he was sought out by Mr Modi offers new evidence of the inappropriate proximity between the Foreign Minister and the entrepreneur.

“When he turned down the offer, what is the problem? Swaraj Kaushal has not hidden his professional links to Lalit Modi,” said BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao.

Mr Modi is wanted in an omnibus of corruption cases in India and now lives in London. Earlier this month, the government was hit by the revelation that last year, Ms Swaraj intervened with UK officials to enable Mr Modi to travel to Portugal with his wife. But the Opposition Congress says the minister is guilty of grave conflict of interest in using her office to help her husband’s client, who has avoided returning to India to face the charges against him.

“Was the offer from Lalit Modi to Swaraj Kaushal also made on humanitarian grounds?” asked Tom Vadakkan of the Congress today.

The Opposition is demanding the resignation of Ms Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who in writing backed Mr Modi’s immigration appeal in the UK. Mr Modi also bought stake in a company co-owned by her son.

The government has backed both Ms Swaraj and Ms Raje. But the Opposition has said it will disrupt the Monsoon Session of Parliament which begins on the 21st unless the leaders are removed from office.