Lalit Modi's champion Keith Vaz faces his Hindujas moment again

In one of the leaked emails relating to the Lalit Modi controversy, Sushma Swaraj’s husband Kaushal writes: “Keith is only next to the Prime Minister of England and can help." The “Keith’’, so reverentially referred to in Kaushal’s email to Modi, is Keith Vaz, the British Labour MP, whose penchant for rushing to help high-profile Indians in distress has landed him in trouble before.

But clearly he remains undeterred.

In 2001, Vaz was forced to resign as Foreign Minister in Tony Blair’s government citing “ill health" amid an investigation into his role in “fast-tracking’’ passport applications of Hinduja brothers—Gopichand and Srichand whose foundation had made a contribution to a firm run by Vaz’s wife.

He admitted making “representations’’ on behalf of the Hindujas but insisted –as he is insisting now in relation to the Modi affair–that it was simply a friendly gesture towards a fellow Asian and someone he knew “very well’’. There was no quid pro quo involved.

An inquiry cleared Vaz of any wrongdoing, but criticised him for “deliberate collusion” with his wife in concealing facts about payments from a Hinduja entity. He was found to have given “misleading" information about his financial relationship with the Hindujas.

Later, he was forced to apologise to the House of Commons, and was suspended for a month on the recommendation of the cross-party Standards and Privileges Committee for “serious breaches” of the MPs’ code of conduct and contempt of the House. He was found to have “misled” Standards Commissioner Elizabeth Filkin and wrongfully interfered with her investigation, the report stated.

In a grovelling statement he told fellow MPs, “I apologise to the committee and the House and in doing so I underline my unreserved support for the integrity of the House and its procedures,” he told MPs at the beginning of the brief debate on the committee’s report.

In the Modi case, Vaz is accused of a “conflict of interest”. At the time he wrote to the government’s immigration official Sarah Rapson about Modi’s travel documents, he was chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee which scrutinises and holds to account Rapson and her department.

Of course, he denies any impropriety and claims that he treated the Modi case no differently from “hundreds" of others in which he believed someone needed legitimate help.

Some of the emails published by The Sunday Times reveal the close interest he took in the case, and how doggedly he pursued it—invoking the name of Sushma Swaraj and the UK High Commissioner in India Sir James Bevan. Earlier, he allegedly sought to put pressure on another senior official claiming Modi had the backing of Prince Charles.

And then this gushing mail to Modi informing him that he had been granted travel documents: “From the horse’s mouth! I will do a thank you (letter) to Rapson, We will need her again."

He also reportedly offered to help the Swaraj family find a place in a good university for their nephew. That was the context for Swaraj Kaushal’s email. Vaz has been involved in a string of other controversies mainly relating to his financial affairs, but he has bounced back every time earning the reputation as “the Teflon MP” and “Keith Vazeline’’ for the way he glides through from one crisis to another unscathed.

Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz, whose family is of Goan descent, is the longest-serving and best-known Asian MP with a weakness for publicity and flaunting his proximity to big business people, important politicians and Bollywood stars.

Shilpa Shetty was reduced to eating out of his hands after he took her under his wings following her appearance on Channel 4’s notorious Big Brother reality show where she suffered racism at the hands of some participants.

The Independent newspaper described him as “one of the UK’s most glamorous and influential British Asians’’.

“He’s been MP for Leicester East since 1987, a member of the Privy Council since 2006, chairman of the Home Affairs committee since 2007. And he has spent much of his 26 years in the corridors of power mired in near-scandals, actual scandals, watchdog scrutinies, leaks, accusations, investigations, complaints and a suspension. Vaz has glided through it all in his serene, elaborately polite way,’’ it wrote as he faces another investigation.

There is speculation that the source of his latest trouble might be the “dirty tricks" department of his fellow rival MPs opposed to his re-re-election as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee.