December 27, 2025 01:37 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Christmas vandalism sparks mass arrests in Raipur; Assam acts too with crackdown on 'religious intolerance' | BJP's VV Rajesh becomes Thiruvananthapuram Mayor after party topples Left's 45-year-rule in city corporation | ‘I can’t bear the pain’: Indian-origin father of three dies after 8-hour hospital wait in Canada hospital | Janhvi Kapoor, Kajal Aggarwal, Jaya Prada slam brutal lynching in Bangladesh, call out ‘selective outrage’ | Tarique Rahman returns to Bangladesh after 17 years | Shocking killing inside AMU campus: teacher shot dead during evening walk | Horror on Karnataka highway: sleeper bus bursts into flames after truck crash, 9 killed | PM Modi attends Christmas service at Delhi church, sends message of love and compassion | Delhi erupts over lynching of Hindu man in Bangladesh; protest outside High Commission | Targeted killing sparks global outrage: American lawmakers condemn mob lynching of Hindu man in Bangladesh

Lalitgate debate begins in Parliament as Sushama Swaraj accepts opposition's challenge

| | Aug 12, 2015, at 07:44 pm
New Delhi, Aug 12 (IBNS) A debate on "Lalitgate scandal" finally began in Parliament on the penultimate day of its Monsoon session on Wednesday after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj accepted the opposition's challenge calling for a discussion on the controversy that has virtually kept paralysed Parliament for more than three weeks with the Congress demanding her resignation allegedly for helping tainted cricket tycoon Lalit Modi.

Initiating the debate, Congress party's floor leader Mallikarjun Kharge ripped into the government's role in the scandal reiterating that the External Affairs Minister should step down on moral ground.

" Lalit Modi has never prioritised his wife's illness when he applied for visa. It was always mentioned as the second or third reason," Kharge said as he sought to break Swaraj's defence that whatever she had done  on "humanitarian ground" was for the sake of Modi's wife, a cancer patient who wanted to be with her husband.

Khagre alleged that Swaraj's family were lawyers in Lalit Modi case and "That's why he was protected."

" The Finance Minister also never initiated an inquiry despite knowing Lalit Modi's economic offence," he said. 

Earlier, the Congress  asked that the House to  suspend all scheduled business to discuss the charges against the External Affairs Minister, who urged Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to sanction the request of adjournment motion.

The Congress-led opposition has been doggedly demanding Swaraj's resignation on the ground that she helped out Lalit Modi to get travel documents in the UK.

However, the Congress demanded that the Prime Minister must be present when Swaraj makes her statement.

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.