File: Undated photo of Vasundhara Raje with Lalit Modi during an IPL match in Jaipur.
After a meeting with Vasundhara Raje today, senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari said she is innocent of any "moral, ethical or legal" transgressions in her dealings with corruption-tainted cricket boss Lalit Modi.
But documents accessed by NDTV raise new questions about the business deals between her son, Dushyant Singh, and Mr Modi. In papers submitted to the Corporate Affairs Ministry, Mr Singh says he sold 815 shares in his company to Mr Modi. In separate documents, Mr Modi says he bought 965 shares in the firm. The discrepancy is the latest signal of a problematic transaction that the Congress has described as a thinly-disguised kickback to Mrs Raje, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan.
Mr Modi left India for London in 2010 while accused of graft during his tenure as the chief of the Indian Premier League or IPL.
Mrs Raje was singed last week by Mr Modi's disclosure that while he was wanted in India, she backed his appeal for immigration to the UK with a document that guaranteed her confidentiality. But in recent days, that controversy has been eclipsed by the revelation that in 2008 and 2009, Mr Modi paid Rs 96,000 for shares in a firm owned by Mrs Raje's son. Bafflingly, the Chief Minister's son estimated the value of his shares in the same firm at only Rs 10 each. In this manner, and through an additional loan of Rs 3.8 crore, Mr Modi routed close to Rs 13 crore to Mrs Raje's son.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has described the transaction as legitimate, an assessment based on careful scrutiny, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao told NDTV today. However, the Enforcement Directorate, which is embedded in the Finance Ministry, has told the Delhi High Court that the same deal is being investigated.