Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yaday on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak up on Vijay Mallya's claim of meeting Union finance minister Arun Jaitley before fleeing the country.

Finance minister Jaitley has confirmed that he met Mallya before the tycoon fled the country but added that it was a forced encounter in the corridors of Parliament and not a structured meeting.

Mallya had fled the country in March 2016 after his businesses defaulted on bank loans of Rs 9,000 crore.

"Prime Minister Narendra calls himself choukidar (guard) of the country and these people (such as Mallya) have fled with money belonging to the country. Now the time has come to speak on the issue that how an absconder like Vijay Mallya fled from the country after meeting the finance minister of the country. When a person has taken loan from the bank and is unable to return, how he can flee the country?

"It proves that there is a strong connection between people like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and the finance minister," Tejashwi told reporters outside his 10 Circular Road residence.

He alleged that something similar happened in Bihar as well when the kingpins of the Srijan fund transfer scam - Amit Kumar and his wife Priya Kumar, son and daughte-in-law of the NGO's late founder - were "allowed to flee by chief minister Nitish Kumar's government".

The former deputy chief minister said that Nitish should also ask for an explanation from the BJP, which is his ally in Bihar, over l'affaire Mallya.

"Will Nitishji ask for an explanation from the BJP, the finance minister and the Prime Minister on Vijay Mallya? I demand that the way he asked for explanation from me, he should also ask explanation from these leaders.

"Till today, the chief minister has not asked explanation from any of his ministers nor the officers in any case in Bihar. The Prime Minister and finance minister must give explanation in the public domain," Tejashwi said.

He said the Modi government must also answer questions Congress president Rahul Gandhi has raised.

"Entire Modi government is hand in glove with scamsters and absconders," Tejashwi alleged. "They hatched a plot to loot hundreds of thousands of crores. The Prime Minister and finance minister must respond on this and we are eagerly waiting for their response because it is public money which they have looted and not returned to the nation yet."

In October 2015, the CBI had issued a lookout notice asking the bureau of immigration to immediately detain Mallya if he tried to leave the country.

But within a month, the agency issued another circular, asking the immigration authorities only to "inform" it of his movements instead of detaining him.

On March 11, 2016, sources in the immigration bureau had claimed that the CBI was alerted about Mallya taking an international flight on March 2 but the agency said there was no arrest warrant.