New Delhi: Fugitive billionaire Nirav Modi’s arrest in London has not impressed opposition parties, most of whom asked how he managed to leave India in the first place and raised doubts the timing of the action just before the Lok Sabha elections.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is on a three-day tour of Uttar Pradesh, said the Narendra Modi government deserved no credit for the arrest of the PNB scam accused. “Ye achievement hai? Jaane kisne diya tha?” she asked.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was blunter in his attack and said the BJP had only helped Nirav Modi flee the country. “They are bringing him back for the elections and will send him back after elections," he said.
The 48-year-old diamantaire was arrested in London on Tuesday and has been remanded in police custody till March 29, after a court turned down his bail plea. The court said there were substantial grounds to believe he may not surrender if a bail is granted.
India had asked Britain in August to extradite the fugitive jeweller, one of the main suspects charged in the Rs 13,500 crore loan fraud at state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB), the biggest banking fraud in the country.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee termed the arrest as BJP’s game plan ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Speaking to media at the state secretariat, Banerjee said, “Full credit goes to the journalist of The Telegraph in London who tracked him there roaming on the streets. It is possible that government was finding it difficult to track him down. Then, how come journalists were aware of his location,” she said.
“Daal mein kuchh kaala hai (something is fishy). I would like to know what is going on behind the curtain. Why it happened just ahead of the election. People will not give BJP credit for this because expiry date is over,” she added.
Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Hardeep Singh Puri, however, hailed the arrest as an achievement for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "You can run, but cannot hide from the country's Chowkidar,” Puri tweeted.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, however, found it amusing to see the “BJP falling over itself to credit the PM with the Nirav Modi arrest while completely ignoring the fact that it was The Telegraph of London & it’s correspondent who found Nirav Modi, not the PM & his agencies.”
“It takes a special kind of hubris to roam around Oxford Street without a care in the world the way Nirav Modi was. It’s no wonder it caught up with him,” he tweeted.
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