'Teflon MP' Keith Vaz: UK legislator at centre of Sushma Swaraj-Lalit Modi scandal no stranger to controversy

At the centre of the controversy surrounding India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and former IPL chief Lalit Modi is British Labour MP Keith Vaz whose emails were leaked. As per emails that have been leaked, Vaz wrote to Sarah Rapson, the director-general of UK visas and immigration, asking whether the former IPL chief’s travel document could be made available”, the Sunday Times investigation has revealed. [caption id=“attachment_64011” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Getty Images[/caption] Former head of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Vaz, has been reported to the UK parliamentary standards commissioner after it has come to light that he lobbied to visa officials on behalf of Lalit Modi. According to the Times report, Modi sent his friends and family an email in which he thanked his legal team “backed by just superstar Keith Vaz.” Though the Labour MP has insisted there was “no conflict of interest” between his intervention and position on the committee and said that he had written the letter because Modi’s wife had cancer and needed to travel abroad for treatment. Vaz who was born in Aden in Yemen was born to parents originally from Goa, India. His family moved to England in 1965 and while his father worked in the airline industry, his mother was a teacher. His father committed suicide when Vaz was just 13. Vaz 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, according to a report by the Independent. But the MP has also been earned the moniker “the Teflon MP” and “Keith Vazeline” for the ease with he has escaped trouble. In 2001, he was accused of helping to process the British passport application of one of the Hinduja brothers. It emerged later that the Hinduja foundation had paid money to a company run by Vaz’s wife. Vaz admitted he had “made representations” on behalf of the Hindujas and other British Asians and resigned from his post as minister for Europe on “health grounds”.  A Parliamentary inquiry report on the incident criticised Vaz for “deliberate collusion” with his wife in concealing facts about payments. In 2002 another scandal broke when a policewoman Eileen Eggington accused Vaz and his wife of employing an illegal immigrant as a nanny and receiving gifts from Asian businessmen like the Hindujas. He was then found to have made false allegations against the retired policewoman, where he alleged that she called up his elderly mother and harassed her. He was suspended from the House for a month. According to a Guardian report, the committee wrote at the time: ‘We conclude that Mr Vaz recklessly made a damaging allegation against Miss Eggington to the Commissioner, which was not true, and which could have intimidated Miss Eggington or undermined her credibility.’

Further scandals linked to Vaz over the years have included  conflict of interest claims, a party in Fiji that cost Tory MP Patrick Mercer his job and, shock of shocks, the expenses scandal. In 2012 a Scotland Yard inquiry into the MPs expenses scandal found funds “of a suspicious nature”  paid into current and savings accounts in the name of or linked to Keith Vaz. Detectives found that over a six-year period, almost £500,000 was deposited in the MP’s accounts — in addition to his salary between 1997 and 2001. According to a Daily Telegraph report, police documents claim that before the 1997 election, "£13,908 was paid into the HSBC accounts and £9,247 taken out. However, in 1997 the amount apparently rose to £136,566 paid in and £130,427 taken out; rising again in 1998 to £187,103 paid in, including nearly £29,000 in cash, and £191,999 taken out. The following year, £120,394 was deposited and £123,991 withdrawn. In 2000, when the first parliamentary investigation into Mr Vaz’s conduct began, the deposits fell to £8,410." Vaz has also been accused of helping Iraqi-born British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi accused of a multi-million dollar fraud. Salman Rushdie has also accused him of duplicity when Vaz offered him help when a fatwa was issued against him over his book Satanic Verses, but later led a march seeking a ban on the book, all of which was documented in Rushdie’s autobiography Anton Chechov. However, in spite of all his scandals, a lavish party to celebrate his 25th year in parliament in July 2012 was attended by Tony Blair, David Miliband, Theresa May and Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.