Jaipur, June 30: The palace plot has thickened but the "prince" is still missing.

Sources say Vasundhara Raje's son and BJP Lok Sabha member Dushyant Singh, 42, is vacationing abroad but nobody knows exactly where.

The BJP says Dushyant owns the Dholpur City Palace that the Congress claims is government property. The Congress has accused Vasundhara of grabbing the palace in collusion with Lalit Modi in its latest attack on the duo.

Dushyant launched the Niyant Heritage Hotel Pvt Ltd, which runs a luxury hotel from the Dholpur property and in which both mother and son have shares, as has Lalit.

Dushyant, however, has been out of sight since the first charges surfaced against Vasundhara in mid-June that she lobbied British authorities to prolong Lalit's immigrant status.

It was followed by a revelation that Lalit had invested Rs 11.63 crore in Niyant in a "sweetheart deal" in 2008-09 that is now under the Enforcement Directorate's scanner.

But Dushyant has been resolutely silent except for a brief statement on June 18 night that dubbed the allegations "malicious rumours" and denied "any illegal transactions".

Some party sources are now speculating he might return sometime in the first week of July when his two children's school vacation gets over. The family lives in Delhi's upscale Lodhi Estate.

Dushyant, wife Niharika and their children Bhairawi Raje and Vinayak Kunwar Pratap Singh are known to spend at least three weeks abroad every summer.

Last year, a source said, they had travelled to Ireland, where Bhairawi took horse-riding lessons. But their whereabouts this year are still a mystery, although the Rajes are known to be frequent visitors to London, where they recently bought two homes.

Political observers are asking why Dushyant is not playing the dutiful son by returning and standing by his mother when she faces perhaps the biggest test of her political career.

But some suspect that Vasundhara has herself delayed his return to protect him, or perhaps the BJP brass has told him to stay put abroad.

It's Vasundhara who has always fought Dushyant's battles, from wresting his share of property from her estranged husband in a long court battle to launching his political career. The shy son has always seemed to live in his ambitious mother's shadow and under her tutelage.

"I wonder why the Raje family haven't spoken yet or cleared their name. Their silence is puzzling," a source said.

"Ideally, the son should have been back to clear his name. As a responsible MP, he should have cut his holiday short amid this controversy."

Vasundhara, who was to visit London in the last week of June to prospect for investors ahead of the Resurgent Rajasthan Partnership Summit in November, cancelled the trip after the controversy erupted.

There's speculation that the chief minister, who was scheduled to inaugurate the London edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival in May, was denied permission to leave by the Prime Minister's Office for some unspecified reason.

The festival was launched by debutante MLA, Vasundhara protégé and Jaipur "princess" Diya Kumari.