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| Deadly cocktail of Sports and politics | | | Kalyani Shankar
The Lalit Modi fiasco began as a sports rivalry. It has now become a political crisis and given the Congress some political space
The ongoing con
troversy involv
ing Lalit Modi and Sushma Swaraj is not going to go away soon. It has so many angles - political, sports, power of the rich and the mighty and so on, but what began as sports rivalry has now blown into a first rate political crisis. Naturally, it has given fodder to the Opposition which has been starved of any real issue. There is no doubt that the real target is Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The immediate provocation for the massive row was from a story that appeared in the Sunday Times recently, about India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj helping former Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi to obtain travel documents to travel to Portugal, where his wife was undergoing treatment for cancer. He fled to London as a fugitive in 2010 after the multi-crore IPL controversy exploded, with a blue corner notice against him. Lalit Modi is bent on washing dirty linen in public. He tweeted, "The battle has just begun, watch the fun now." In another tweet, he said that he would come up with more bombshells implicating the 'erstwhile Prime Minister's Office".
Unfortunately for the Modi Government, there are too many loose ends with some top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders having connections with Lalit Modi. But the saving grace is that he also has connections with many leaders from other political parties including the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. Although the present crisis began with the questioning of the propriety of Swaraj helping Lalit Modi, the Congress has now widened its scope and has demanded a Supreme Court monitored Special Investigation Team probe into the issue. It now holds that the Modi Government was trying to help Lalit Modi. Other political parties have also joined the chorus. The Congress is getting support from an odd quarter - BMP ally Shiv Sena, but for different reasons. Ironically the Shiv Sena is also demanding an inquiry so that those who were trying to destabilise the Modi Government get exposed. The reasons for the Congress blowing up the Sushma-Modi controversy are understandable.First, the party which was routed in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and the subsequent Assembly polls, is yet to find its feet. After Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi came back from his sabbatical, the Congress has been trying to find issues. This controversy has come in handy. Therefore, it stands to reason that the party has launched an intensive and aggressive campaign to gain some political space. Second, why is the Congress attacking Swaraj? Although she had contested against Congress president Sonia Gandhi in 1999 from Bellary and lost, and later threatened to shave off her head if Gandhi became the Prime Minster, the two women leaders have developed cordial relations over the years. Actually, the thaw began when Swaraj, as the Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the Vajpayee Government, called on Ms Gandhi to seek cooperation to run Parliament. Since then, one can see comfortable relations between the two - Swaraj herself has admitted to this fact. So what has happened to all that cordiality now? Inside sources say that it is Gandhi who is keen on not losing an opportunity to attack Modi. Swaraj happens to be in the firing line. After all, she is one of the top four Ministers in the Modi Cabinet. To add to the woes of the Modi Government, Lalit Modi has dropped another bombshell by revealing some alleged secret documents involving the Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. The released document says that Raje stipulated that the Indian authorities should not know her endorsing Mr Lalit Modi's application to stay on in the UK.
The Lalit Modi episode is only the tip of the It is clear that Modi will not bow down to the pressure of the Opposition to sack the two leaders. The real test will come when the Monsoon Session of Parliament begins next month. The Opposition, although divided in its approach on the issue as some parties like the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party have extended support to Swaraj, will strive to keep the issue alive.The moral of the story is something else. Sports and politics have become intertwined, with politicians heading sports bodies. The time has come to tackle this issue.
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