New Delhi: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s attempt to drag Congress president Sonia Gandhi into the Lalit Modi row to prove her innocence became counter-productive as Mrs Gandhi rejected Ms Swaraj’s claim, calling it ‘theatrics”, while her son Rahul, party vice-president, said the whole thing was kept secret like in a case of “theft”.
Responding to questions, Mrs Gandhi said: “Sushma Swaraj is doing drama, she is an expert in theatrics... I would certainly have done my best to help the lady, but not by breaking the law.”
Rahul Gandhi, on his part, asked why Ms Swaraj was so secretive about helping Lalit Modi, suggesting that the issue was not as simple as she was projecting it to be. He demanded that the minister explain how much money the Swaraj family had got Lalit Modi, a fugitive. Mr Gandhi told reporters, and went on to add: “My mother would not have acted like her."
Ms Swaraj’s statement may have made it more difficult for her sympathisers in the Opposition to defend her. The Samajwadi Party, the NCP, the RJD were not very critical of Ms Swaraj’s role and thus not pressing for her resignation like the Congress and the Left.
The BJP, meanwhile, hit back at Mrs Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi after their attack on Ms Swaraj, by taking a dig at dynastic politics. The BJP fielded HRD minister Smriti Irani to defend the external affairs minister as well as Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
In a swipe at the Gandhi family over their attack on Ms Swaraj and the Speaker, she suggested that both of them came from normal families. “People in this country know a woman coming from a normal family has to toil hard to make a space for herself in society and the economy. It is generally seen that children of such women also work hard.
The Congress may have an exception in the Gandhi family where they don’t have to sweat it out in the sun to earn their livelihood. I completely deny their charges,” Ms Irani said.
