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In a new twist to the Lalit Modi and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj row, newly-emerged documents show that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje agreed to secretly testify in the former’s United Kingdom immigration application in 2011.
In a three-page statement released by the former Indian Premiere League boss’s legal team Raje, who was then the leader of opposition in Rajasthan assembly, had supported Modi’s application for immigration to the UK in 2011.
But she did so under the clause that her name would be kept confidential from the Indian authorities. The statement was mailed by the legal team to TV news channels on Tuesday night.
"This witness statement is provided on the strict understanding that its contents and the identity of its maker are treated confidentially and that it is used only for the purposes stated in it," the document, dated August 18, 2011, said.
The document, whose authenticity has not been confirmed yet, came into circulation just hours after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley backed Swaraj saying whatever she had done was in good faith and bona fide. Titled ‘Witness Statement’, the document, said to have emanated from the Lalit Modi camp, had a confidentiality clause in which Raje purportedly supported Modi's case but did not want it to be revealed to Indian authorities.
Late in the evening, Raje seemed to distance herself from the document saying "I do not know what documents they are talking about."
Asked if it was a media trial, she said that ‘it is left to you to decide’.
The Raje episode came as a further embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its government which have been battling the first major political crisis in more than a year since it assumed office.
Kailash Nath Bhat, Rajasthan BJP spokesperson, however, questioned the authenticity of the document saying there were no signatures of Raje and also that she had not been in touch with Modi for the last four or five years.
"This is being done to malign the image of the chief minister," he said.
Earlier in the day, Jaitley sought to do some damage control by coming out in defence of Swaraj two days after the raging controversy broke out triggering a political storm.
Swaraj, Jaitley and Home Minister Rajnath Singh met in the Home ministry and discussed the entire issue for an hour before Singh and Jaitley held a press conference.
"All allegations levelled are baseless. Her (Swaraj) statement and that of the party President (show) that whatever she did was with good intentions.
"She acted bona fide. The entire government and the party are one on the issue. There should be no doubt on this," Jaitley said with Singh by his side.
On Sunday, all hell broke loose when it was revealed that Swaraj had helped former Modi acquire travel documents on ‘humanitarian grounds’ to attend to his wife who was undergoing treatment for cancer in Portugal last year.
Facing opposition attack, Swaraj had said, “What benefit did I pass on to Lalit Modi - that he could sign consent papers for surgery of his wife suffering from cancer? He was in London. After his wife’s surgery, he came back to London. What is it that I changed?”
She also reportedly spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi explaining her position on the issue.
Modi, who is wanted in India, has made London his home since 2010 to avoid a probe for alleged foreign exchange regulation violations in the T20 cricket tournament held in South Africa in 2009. The previous United Progressive Alliance government had revoked his passport and had pressed for his extradition.
With inputs from PTI
Image: Chief Minister of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje speaks during an interview at her office in Jaipur. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters