File: Undated photo of Vasundhara Raje with Lalit Modi during an IPL match in Jaipur.
To defend tainted cricket tycoon Lalit Modi's highly unusual investment in Niyant Heritage, a hotel company run by Dushyant Singh, the son of chief minster Vasundhara Raje, the BJP has repeatedly claimed that the company owns the Dholpur Palace, the Raje family mansion in Rajasthan.
Mr Modi 's firm had between 2008-09 purchased shares of Niyant, worth Rs 10 each, for nearly Rs 96,000 each. The disclosure earlier this month- reported on NDTV - triggered allegations of an illicit deal.
But Ashok Parnami, the BJP's Rajasthan president said the transaction was valid, because "Niyant Private Limited's properties includes the Dholpur palace, one property in Delhi and another in Lucknow, all of which have been merged".
However, the Dholpur Palace, valued at Rs 16 crores, figures nowhere on Niyant's balance sheets at the time when the transactions were made. In fact, Mr Singh's Income Tax returns for the year 2012-13 show that it is registered in the name of a dependent (presumably one of Mr Singh's children).
Mr Modi fled India in 2010 while engulfed in a series of cases that accused him of corruption during his tenure as the chief of the cash-rich Indian Premier League or IPL.
His deal with the Rajasthan Chief Minister's son came under the scanner when the Enforcement Directorate began probing an alleged foreign exchange violation by the cricket boss's firm in February this year.
In its defense of Mrs Raje' son, the BJP has said that the transaction between him and Mr Modi was legal and duly taxed. But even a generous estimate of the interest and taxes paid adds up to Rs 55 lakh, just 4% of the Rs 13 crore invested by Mr Modi in Mr Singh's firm.
Strikingly, the same company posted losses of Rs 38 lakh in 2008-09, the year that Mr Modi bought its shares at a premium.