Lalit Gate: PM 'must break his silence, can't write new rule book', says Congress

Mounting pressure on the government to sack Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the Congress Party on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi must stop his attempt to write a new rule book and break his silence on the controversy surrounding former IPL chief Lalit Modi.

"Anybody, who has committed these acts, has no right to remain in office. The Prime Minister must break his silence. He cannot write a new rule book. The same rules will be applicable to them and Congress is duty bound as a principal opposition party to enforce accountability," Congress leader Aanand Sharma told the media here.

He said the Congress wants the house to function but there cannot be different parameters and different standards of accountability for the BJP-NDA Ministers and their Chief Ministers.

"There are established traditions. When it comes to propriety and probity, it is an act of gross impropriety to help a person wanted by law and to facilitate clandestine obtaining the travel documents of Britain, a country to whom India has repeatedly been requesting to send that person back to face the law of the land," he added.

Sharma termed the Lalit Modi episode as an abuse of office.

"This is helping a person, who is evading the law. And this government has twice informed the Parliament that there are 14 cases registered by the Enforcement Directorate against this person," he said.

"Similarly, the present Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, when she was the Leader of the Opposition, gave an affidavit in support of the same person to the British court and the authorities with the pre-condition that her affidavit in support of the British residence application should not be disclosed to the Indian Government and the Indian authorities," he added.

The opposition has been demanding that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje should be sacked for helping Lalit Modi.