The controversy surrounding the beleaguered businessman's departure figured both inside and outside Parliament.
A political slugfest erupted on Thursday over liquor baron Vijay Mallya leaving India in the middle of a massive loan default probe with Rahul Gandhi accusing the government of "helping" him, a charge rejected by finance minister Arun Jaitley, who raked up the Bofors case to remind him of Ottavio Quattrocchi's escape during Congress rule.
The controversy surrounding the beleaguered businessman's departure figured both inside and outside Parliament.
The Congress alleged that despite a 'look-out notice' against Mallya, he was allowed to leave the country. "Mallya is not a needle that he can be missed. He is a huge man and is visible from a distance of a kilometre. How did he run away? Why was his passport not seized?" asked Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha.
Azad raised the matter in the upper House and accused the NDA government of "criminal consipracy" in allowing him to fly out of the country.
When the issue was raised in Lok Sabha, junior parliamentary affairs minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy asserted Mallya is "no saint for us" and that he has "not been given a single penny" by the NDA Government.
Outside Parliament, a combative Rahul asked how the government allowed Mallya, who owes over Rs 9,000 crore to banks, to leave the country and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jaitley have failed to answer this question in their speeches.
The Congress vice-president attacked the government, saying the entire country is questioning why it was "helping" people like Mallya by allowing him to escape and not fulfilling its promises made to people for bringing back black money and "giving Rs 15 lakh into every person's bank account".
Jaitley while rejecting Gandhi's charge told reporters that late Quattrocchi, a Bofors case accused, had fled the country under the Congress government watch in 1993.
Raking up the Bofors case that had dogged Rajiv Gandhi government and the Congress for years, Jaitely said, "Rahul ji should remember that there is a basic difference in Mallya leaving (the country) and Quattrochi going out (of India). And let me explain him the difference.
—With agency inputs
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