UK passport row snares new minister

British newspapers report that Vaz made inquiries about a passport for Srichand Hinduja

LONDON, England -- UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, battling to contain a passport scandal that has already forced one minister to quit, has backed a second minister under scrutiny.

Junior minister Keith Vaz, who lobbied on behalf of a wealthy Indian business family, is the latest subject of the passports-for-favours row.

Blair denied any government wrongdoing and attacked a "media frenzy" over Europe Minister Vaz's links to a member of the Hinduja family who gave money to Blair's ill-fated Millennium Dome while seeking a British passport.

The affair led to the resignation on Wednesday of Blair's closest ally, Northern Ireland minister Peter Mandelson, just as Blair was gearing up for an election expected in May.

Vaz, besieged by reporters before a meeting at India's High Commission in London, said he had made representations for the Hinduja family as a member of parliament.

Peter Mandelson resigned on Wednesday

He ducked questions about his links to them since becoming a government minister two years ago. "We must wait until the inquiry has had a chance to look at the facts," Vaz, 44, said.

Blair tried to dismiss the dispute and said the inquiry set up last week, to be carried out by senior lawyer Sir Anthony Hammond, would investigate all the allegations.

"When the media gets into one of these feeding frenzies this is what happens," Blair told reporters on a visit to his parliamentary constituency in north-east England.

"I have to say that, having a look at the papers I've seen, I can't see anything wrong with the things that are supposed to have been done," he said.

Conservative home affairs spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe said the government had to explain why an application for a passport by one of the three Hinduja brothers, Srichand, had been approved in just six months when the process usually took 20.

"The issue -- is whether or not any influence was brought to bear on a decision which should have been taken wholly impartially," she said.

Newspapers reported that Vaz, Britain's first minister of Asian origin, had written to both to Blair and Mandelson in October 1997 about giving Srichand a passport.

Vaz suggested that the media and opposition charges against him were in part racially motivated. "I don't like this hint of 'Why should an Indian person get a passport?'," he said.

The Hindujas, listed as Britain's richest Asian family with interests including oil, banking, media and trucks, moved many of their business dealings to London from India 20 years ago.

Mandelson, architect of Blair's landslide 1997 election win, resigned after admitting he was personally involved in looking into the prospects of getting a British passport for Srichand.

The brothers made a £1 million ($1.47 million) donation to London's Millennium Dome, for which Mandelson had been responsible. They have strongly denied there was any link to Srichand's passport.

The brothers are being questioned by investigators in New Delhi over an arms scandal involving alleged kickbacks.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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UK minister resigns over passport row
January 24, 2001

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