Lalitgate scandal a fallout of tussle between Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, says Digvijaya

Bhopal: Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday said the Lalitgate scandal was the fallout of a tussle between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. “The Lalitgate scandal is a fallout of a tussle between Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley,” Singh told reporters here. [caption id=“attachment_2397700” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Digvijaya Singh. PTI[/caption] He said even a blue corner Interpol notice has been turned into a red corner one against Lalit Modi, the former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner, due to Jaitley’s intervention. “The Lalitgate scandal has its genesis in the fight between the two camps in the BCCI. One group hacked the other group’s emails and vice-versa, resulting in the scandal getting exposed. The whole issue started with a BCCI committee headed by Jaitley which recommended strong action against Lalit Modi in the IPL scandal,” he said. “Jaitley has never defended Lalit Modi,” Singh said, to prove that it was a tussle between Sushma and Jaitley. Singh also alleged Lalit Modi is vocal on the IPL issue at the behest of “Bade Modi” (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) while answering a query about whether there was any connection between Lalit Modi and Narendra Modi, since Narendra Modi was president of Gujarat Cricket Association when he was Gujarat Chief Minister. Referring to Jaitley’s remark that obstruction and disruption in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha is “anti-development” and “anti-growth”, the Congress General Secretary said when the previous UPA government was in power, Jaitley used to say that disruption is a “legitimate parliamentary practice”. Referring to Vyapam scam probe, Singh said according to a laboratory report, the Microsoft Excel sheet file recovered from the computer of one of the prime accused who is currently in jail, had been tampered with. He said that he has written to the CBI director to do a fair investigation into it. Singh also demanded that students and parents who were jailed should be made approvers as it was done in the case of former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Choutala in the contractual teacher recruitment scam. Speaking about the BJP’s victory in the recent local body elections, Singh said that the BJP is celebrating its win as if it recieved a clean chit in the Vyapam scam. “In local body elections, it is seen that generally the ruling party wins. Even the Congress won when such polls when it was in power,” he said, adding that the “BJP won the polls by hook or crook”. PTI