Headlines
Raje back in Jaipur, fails to meet Modi, Shah
Jaipur/New Delhi, June 27
Rajasthan Chief
Minister Vasundhara Raje returned to Jaipur on Saturday afternoon after
failing to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah
in the wake of charges that she helped former IPL chief Lalit Modi.
The
chief minister, who left on Saturday morning by helicopter to attend a
NITI Aayog meeting, spent some time at her house in Delhi before flying
back to Jaipur afternoon, a source close to Raje said.
The source
insisted that the chief minister went to Delhi only to attend a NITI
Aayog meeting and that nothing else was scheduled in the national
capital.
However, political analysts view her failure to meet the Bharatiya Janata Party's top leaders as a snub.
BJP
sources said Raje, under attack from the opposition which wants her to
quit, wanted to meet Prime Minister Modi, Shah as well as Home Minister
Rajnath Singh to give them her side of the story on the Lalit Modi
issue.
"It seems that after being denied an audience by the top
leadership, she felt it is better to come back to Jaipur," said a BJP
functionary on the condition of anonymity.
"She will certainly
try again to reach out to the central leadership, and may send her close
confidants from here (Jaipur) to meet them in the next couple of days,"
he added.
The Rajasthan BJP is standing by the chief minister, saying that all the allegations hurled against her are baseless.
Rajasthan
Health Minister Rajendra Rathore has said: "The party is fully behind
the chief minister. There is no questioning of her resigning."
The
opposition has ganged up against Raje, saying she signed a witness
statement in support of Lalit Modi's immigration application for Britain
when he was being probed by the Enforcement Directorate.
She was
then the leader of the opposition in the Rajasthan assembly. According
to the opposition, she also made it known that the matter should be kept
confidential.
Ashok Parnami, the BJP state president, on Friday
admitted that the documents being shown by the media do contain her
signature on the last page.
"The document is not in official
format of any UK court," Parnami said. "The signed document is not a
witness statement, and it was not presented in a court."
In New
Delhi too, a Rajasthan government official told IANS that Raje had no
plans to meet either Prime Minister Modi or any other BJP leader.
"She was here only to attend the NITI Aayog meeting," he added.
According
to BJP sources, a meeting took place between Prime Minister Modi and
Shah on Friday in which it was decided that Raje would attend the NITI
Aayog meeting.
A BJP leader privy to the meeting told IANS on the
condition of anonymity that the leaders also discussed "how to convert
the Blue Corner Notice against Lalit Modi into a Red Corner Notice".
"Lalit Modi can be detained in any country if the Red Corner Notice is issued," he said.