Sushma puts BJP in a difficult position

Indiscretion of a serious kind — unless there are other reasons of which we know nothing — have led external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj into an unenviable situation. Questioning her conduct in the Lalit Modi affair is not a matter of politicking, the direction in which BJP president Amit Shah seems keen to push the episode. It is not a ruling party versus the Opposition issue. In a democracy, questions will arise over Ms Swaraj’s conduct.

In Britain, where the former IPL boss was obliged to take up residence after being charged with serious financial bungling when he ran the cricket body, ministers have been dispossessed of their responsibility for far less because norms of accountability are stringent.

The story so far is that Ms Swaraj’s husband and daughter were Mr Modi’s lawyers when he was facing legal difficulties and his passport had been impounded. Given the context, it is indefensible for the minister to approach the British authorities to arm her husband’s client with travel documents. The conflict of interest is self-evident.

Ms Swaraj’s defence citing “humanitarian” considerations — that the appeal for British travel documents was made by the minister to enable Mr Modi to visit his wife who was undergoing cancer treatment in Portugal — seems a stretch. This is especially so since the Indian government had taken away his passport at the time (the recent High Court order that depriving the former IPL boss of his passport was not warranted, is not germane here) in view of his misconduct in respect of IPL affairs which had been duly inquired into.

In effect, the external affairs minister, with her eyes open, chose to intervene on behalf of someone whose status was dubious and who was being defended in court by members of her immediate family. By any yardstick, this is a serious matter. Informal appeals at the bureaucratic level from the ministry of external affairs to their British counterparts to permit Mr Modi one-time travel for a restricted period in view of his wife’s medical condition would also have been deemed improper but might have been understandable on “humanitarian” considerations. Ms Swaraj, however, went well beyond this. She, in effect, sought to let Mr Modi know that she had stepped in on his behalf — notching up a personal favour at a high political level. She also lobbied with Keith Vaz, a senior British MP of Indian origin. If there was any other consideration at work can only be known through an inquiry.

It is a pity that not just the BJP but also the RSS seems to have thrown its weight behind the minister’s defence, which appears laboured. On matters like these, we should aim to rise above party politics.