New Delhi, June 29: The Congress today tried to keep the Lalit Modi scandal boiling, accusing Vasundhara Raje of colluding with the disgraced cricket czar to capture government property and run a luxury hotel in Rajasthan.
The allegation came at a time the BJP has been ignoring opinions from within the party and outside to take action, hoping the scandal will fade away.
Releasing documents - primarily government land records since 1954 - the Congress alleged that the main asset of a company owned by Vasundhara's family, in which the Rajasthan chief minister holds shares and Lalit had made an investment, was government land. The Dholpur City Palace used to be government property but was now in the control of Vasundhara and Lalit, party leader Jairam Ramesh said at a news conference.
The BJP denied the allegation in a counter news conference in Jaipur, saying Vasundhara's son Dushyant was handed the property by his father Hemant Singh after a settlement in a fast-track court in 2007.
The Congress stuck to its guns, dismissing the BJP's assertion as false. Party spokesperson Tom Vadakkan said: "We are sure of our facts; the documents we released are all official papers, not our statements. There is no dispute that the palace was government property till 2010."
The party appeared to be focusing on pushing the BJP on the backfoot by suggesting that the legalities were locked in a grey area and the deal could go through only because of the project's association with the Raje family.
Ramesh was supposed to rebut the BJP claim this evening but the scheduled interaction with the media was cancelled at the last minute as the party presumed a proper response with supporting documents was required. That may happen later. Asked about the BJP's claim that the ownership had been settled by the court in favour of Dushyant, Vadakkan said: "If it is so, why did the BJP not release those documents to the media?"
The Congress said the duo had grabbed the property through an illegal deal between Niyant Heritage Hotel Pvt Ltd, owned by Vasundhara's family, and Lalit's company Anand Heritage Hotels Pvt Ltd.
It said the Rajasthan government was not involved in the deal and was not earning revenue from the property.
"On 10.04.1954, the Dholpur Riyasat (principality) merged with the Union of India. As per a letter issued by the Government of India, the list of private properties of the then ruler of Dholpur state, Rana Udaibhan Singh (father of Vasundhara's estranged husband Hemant Singh), was decided," Ramesh said.
"Dholpur Palace and the land it is built on were not included or described as his personal property. This fact is also admitted by none less than Hemant Singh in court in an inter-party litigation. He submitted before the court on 14.11.1980 (that) after the merger of Dholpur Riyasat, the City Palace, Dholpur, was declared as owned by the government."
Ramesh released the original document of the court proceedings, including Hemant's statement, repeatedly regretting the Congress was being forced to drag family matters of non-politicians into the open.
Raje had separated from Hemant soon after the birth of Dushyant in the early 1970s.
"Even Raje had admitted in an affidavit dated 11.08.2005 filed in civil suit No. 222 of 2003, titled 'Dushyant Singh vs Hemant Singh', saying that after 22.10.1954, no property was declared as private property by the Government of India," Ramesh said. "Despite such clear evidence, Raje and Lalit Modi proceeded to convert the same into a high-end private luxury hotel."
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeatedly as "Swamy Maun-nendra", Ramesh said: "The Prime Minister has been silent so far. He is free to become Dhritarashtra. But we are not going to let him off the hook till both Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje are sacked."
While Vasundhara has been accused of lobbying British authorities secretly in 2011 to prolong Lalit's immigrant status, foreign minister Sushma has acknowledged helping him acquire UK travel papers.
