In a big diplomatic win for the government of India, the Antiguan government has decided to rescind the citizenship granted to fugitive diamantaire and economic offender Mehul Choksi and expatriate him back to India to face the law. The Antiguan PM Browne declared that Choksi’s citizenship will be revoked and that his country is not a safe haven for sheltering criminals accused of financial crimes.
This is hailed as a significant victory for the Indian investigative agencies who had been trying to secure Choksi’s extradition from Antigua since March 2019. However, some of the ‘liberal’ lodestars who had displayed exaggerated eagerness in slamming PM Modi and the BJP government for being lax in letting the fraud businessman escape are conspicuously silent on such an important development.
An abusive troll masquerading as a journalist, Swati Chaturvedi had gone hammer and tongs alleging that PM Modi was in cahoots with Mehul Choksi for the latter’s ‘smooth passage’ after committing a fraud of thousands of crores.
“Hamarey Mehul Bhai” says Modi no wonder Choksi had such a smooth passage after scamming thousands of crores pic.twitter.com/lBYjrGmrPp
— Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) August 3, 2018
However, far from crediting PM Modi’s proficient foreign policy responsible for getting Mehul Choksi’s Antiguan citizenship abrogated, Swati didn’t even find the news of the setback to Mehul Choksi worth sharing on her social media page.
A notable journalist who also heads the prestigious position of president of Editors’ Guild of India, Shekhar Gupta had earlier tweeted that Mehul Choksi’s escape would not have been possible without the help from the ‘system’. Gupta also took a swipe at PM Modi saying “PM Modi and Antiguan Pres Browne had a little love-fest on sidelines of London CHOGM” 3 months after Antigua gave Choksi its citizenship.
Mehul Choksi can afford to pay from our stolen taxes, we know.
But Antigua giving an Indian fugitive a passport is an act of hostility…
3 months after Antiguan Pres Browne and PM Modi were having a little love-fest on sidelines of London CHOGMhttps://t.co/ic5t1rRUCJ— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) July 24, 2018
But, at the time of the writing of this article, Shekhar Gupta had not tweeted a single congratulatory tweet for the Indian diplomatic team for scoring such a massive win and smoothing over Choksi’s subsequent expatriation.
Congress loyalist who claims himself to be a professor, Ashok Swain had relentlessly attacked PM Modi and maligned the BJP government at the centre for not doing anything to stop various economic offenders from fleeing the country.
3 In 2017-2018, Nirav Modi and Modi’s Mehul Bhai (Choksi), who are the main accused in over Rs 110 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, have left the country and Modi government has failed to do anything.
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) January 8, 2019
Now that Antiguan PM Browne had assured that Mehul Choksi will be returned to India, Ashok Swain is expectedly silent on the issue.
Another abusive journalist Sanjukta Basu had posted a series of tweets holding BJP guilty of being in collusion with the diamantaire for his escape. Basu asserted that the saffron party was corrupt and it favoured crony capitalism.
Why “NDA” gave Choksi free pass, it is BJP. Why is the hashtag #NDAChoksiSlipUp? Why not #BJPHelpedChoksiEscape or #ModiHelpedMehulBhai? Is it some kind of mind game? So that BJP’s association with crony capitalism and corruption do not get registered in junta’s minds. https://t.co/05OnH9KEeB
— Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) August 4, 2018
Sanjukta too has maintained a piercing silence on the Modi government’s latest foreign policy accomplishment.
A raft of other ‘neutralist’ liberals has turned a blind eye to this consequential development. Speaking about this issue will inevitably lead to praising PM Modi and appreciating his foreign policy, which is why most of them proceeded to sweep it under the rugs as if it had no consequence.
Besides Mehul Choksi, another fugitive businessman Nirav Modi, accused in the same multi-crore PNB scam was denied bail for the third time by a British court in a case related to his extradition to India for fraud and money-laundering case amounting up to $ 2 billion. In addition to this, liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who too had been accused of defrauding lenders of Rs 9000 crores, was also ordered to be extradited to India by UK courts.
The abrogation of Mehul Choksi’s Antiguan citizenship has served as a body blow to the usual suspects, who have still not fully recovered from the trauma of witnessing an unprecedented victory for the BJP in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections despite their extensive campaigning against the party.
Many used Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya’s escape as a means to taint Modi government of being complicit with these economic offenders and cast a dent in their electoral prospects. However, as the results suggested the people of the country didn’t buy into their agenda and summarily rejected their propaganda.
