The root of Sushma Swaraj woes: Keith Vaz, the NRIs go-to-MP in Britain

With banner headlines like SUSH-MASHED and “Chorus grows for Sushma Swaraj’s resignation”, it’s easy to think that the favours scandal du jour rocking India is all about the External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. But no one was hacking Swaraj’s email. This was really about denting the armour of a different politician, one far more Teflon-coated than Swaraj - Keith Vaz, the great survivor of British politics. “I have recently become aware that my email address may have been hacked, and confidential emails may have been downloaded,” said Vaz in a short statement this weekend. [caption id=“attachment_2296530” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  UK lawmaker Keith Vaz. Agencies[/caption] The MP from Leicester East joined the Labour Party in 1982, entered parliament in 1987 and has survived through thick and thin since then. Labour got a drubbing this time around but Keith Vaz made it through. Even Abhishek Bachchan went to stump for Vaz calling him “a very very close family friend”. Now Vaz is the vice-chairman of the Labour Party and he’s under fire. The Sushma Swaraj-Lalit Modi story has the fingerprints of Vaz all over it. When Sushma Swaraj’s husband wrote to Lalit Modi about his nephew looking to get into the law program at Sussex, Modi emailed Vaz to say “Can you help with this?” The ever-obliging Vaz replied “Sure, can you get him to send over his CV and name of Professor etc.” When Lalit Modi himself needed those travel papers and turned to Sushma Swaraj for a good word again it was Vaz who was emailing Sarah Rapson, the head of UK visas and immigration. Within a day Rapson responded saying “the solicitors have been contacted with the good news.” That same day Lalit Modi emailed his gratitude to “super star Keith Vaz”. Basically if there had been no Keith Vaz, Sushma Swaraj would probably not be in such a pickle today. He was the go-to man when it came to Indians getting things done in UK and it’s only half in jest that he was described as “next only to the Prime Minister of England and can help.” Now that gratitude is coming to backfire on Vaz who might face a parliamentary watchdog committee enquiry in the UK. Vaz claims this was just “routine” and that in the past year over 270 people outside his constituency have contacted him for help and it was just his “duty to deal with these cases in a courteous and helpful manner.” Whether all 270 got the personal red-carpet treatment that Modi got is the question. Like Swaraj, Vaz contends this was a humanitarian case involving a cancer patient. And no, no, please don’t give him credit. It was Modi’s lawyers that did the work. That’s self-effacing humility that does not come easy to Vaz who once called himself “a leading member, if not the leading member, of the Asian community in this country.” Political commentator Kevin Maguire quipped “The most dangerous place in Britain? Between Keith Vaz and a camera.” Whether Vaz went beyond the bounds of courtesy and helpfulness to assist Lalit Modi or not, what’s clear is Keith Vaz has become Keith Vaz by being a very helpful man. He’s just a phone call away especially if you are rich and powerful. In 2001 he was accused of helping the British passport application of one of the HInduja brothers whose foundation gave money to a company run by Vaz’s wife. Vaz admitted to have “made representations” on behalf of the Hindujas and later left his cabinet post on “health grounds” though the main allegations against him remained unproven. Later he was accused of helping an Anglo-Iraqi billionaire business associate avoid extradition to France where he was facing investigation in a fraud scandal reports The Independent. He has been suspended from the House of Commons for a month, criticized by a reports committee but he’s kept bouncing back. If not a minister, then at least the chair of the home affairs select committee. And it’s not because Abhishek Bachchan stumps for him. Keith Vaz is, as Lalit Modi knows, a very helpful man and he has helpful friends in high places. Tony Blair attended his party to celebrate 25 years in British politics and his dinner table boasts a who’s who of British Asian elite reports The Independent. According to the BBC he led Muslim marchers opposing the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1990 even though he had allegedly called Rushdie to extend his “full support” to him. Though he was born in Yemen to parents from Goa and raised in the UK, Keith Vaz is clearly happy to be “hamara Keith”. He is the anti-Bobby Jindal of diasporan politics. While Jindal has white washed himself to be as non-hyphenated a politician as he can be, Vaz embraces his ethnic origin with gusto. He is the kind of politician of Indian origin that the Pravasi Divas honours were created for. As vice-chair of the Labour Party he told The Times of India that one of his priorities would be “to encourage and facilitate a visit from the new Labour Leader to India.” When the European Union lifted a ban on mango import, Keith Vaz delivered a batch of fresh Alphonso mangos to David Cameron to celebrate a “superb campaign to lift the European Union’s ban on India’s ‘King of Fruits’.” He has said if his constituents had their way, “they would think it great if we had a statue of one of the world’s greatest actors Amitabh Bachchan in Leicester”. In 2014 he moved a motion in parliament to applaud the success of the regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in London which was attended by Sushma Swaraj. Many other politicians in his place would be wary of being accused of dual loyalties. But Leicester has one of the largest populations of people of Indian origin outside India and Vaz has leveraged his ethnic roots into an enormous asset. Despite the financial probes and ethics questions and accusations about his expenses, his party regards him as a gatekeeper to the influential Asian and immigrant vote and Vaz is never out of the limelight for long. His nickname says The Telegraph in London is Vazeline as nothing sticks to him. Vaz’s friends (and he has many in high places) would say that these are really attempts by his enemies to sabotage the career of Britain’s longest-serving Asian MP. Sushma Swaraj’s friends suggest the same thing about her. Now as they both battle for political survival in their home countries, both claiming they were only being “helpful”, they make for an odd couple. Radhika Ramaseshan says in The Telegraph that Swaraj’s problem is she has never been a “people person” and never “gone out of her way to seek out cadres or lower-rung leaders to coax and cement loyalties” and now finds herself stranded without her long time mentor L. K. Advani sidelined in the party. Vaz, on the other hand, was described by his own boss the Lord Chancellor as the “most incredible networker I have ever met.” Today as she wiggles her way out of a sticky situation, knowing that few in the top echelons of her party really have her back, Sushma Swaraj must be wishing she had access to a little bit of the British MP’s famous all-season slippery “Vazeline”.