New Delhi--External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s intervention with the British authorities in favour of Lalit Modi, the discredited founder of the IPL and a fugitive from Indian law, constitutes a case of impropriety. That the individual at the centre of the controversy is Swaraj only sharpens the government’s embarrassment.
She has been one of the best performing ministers in the Narendra Modi government and an articulate voice for it in Parliament and outside. Her skills of diplomacy and persuasion, which helped bring together government and opposition to pass the Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh in Parliament recently, and her empathetic and effective response to Indians stranded in war zones in Iraq and Yemen were deservedly acknowledged and appreciated.
It is surprising, and disquieting, therefore, that despite her long experience as an administrator and parliamentarian, she apparently turned what should have been an institutional response in the Lalit Modi matter into a personal, discretionary decision.
INDIAN EXPRESS
