Washington (USA): After weeks of questions, Obama transition team member and former Google executive Sonal Shah renounced her former connection to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) accused of fomenting violence against Muslims and Christians in India.

Shah said that if she could have anticipated the role of the VHP in the 2002 outbreak of communal violence in Gujarat, she never would have associated with the group’s American branch a year earlier:

In 2002, Gujarat suffered one of the most profound tragedies in its long history, when extremist political leaders, including some associated with the VHP, incited riots that resulted in the deaths of thousands. Had I been able to foresee the role of the VHP in India in these heinous events, or anticipate that the VHP of America could possibly stand by silently in the face of its Indian counterpart’ s complicity in the events of Gujarat in 2002 — thereby undermining the American group’s cultural and humanitarian efforts with which I was involved — I would not have associated with the VHP of America.

The controversy escalated this weekend when Shah asked supporters for their help in stopping the spread of allegations that she had been a member of the VHP.

In an e-mail Shah asked her supporters for help combating the allegations and expressed fear that the Obama transition team would ask her to resign as a result of the story.

The controversy has been gathering steam in the Indian press and South Asian blogosphere for weeks, but it went mainstream when former GOP Senator Rick Santorum published an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer questioning the appointment of Shah to the transition team — prompting a Lost In Transition.

Her appointment to the administration has drawn strong reactions from the South Asian community. While many prominent Indian-Americans have stood behind Shah, others have raised doubts about her past.

Mr Ubaid and Vijay Prashad, a South Asian history professor at Trinity College (Conn.) who wrote the original article questioning Shah’s ties to the VHP, pointed to a recent interview in which a VHP-America leader indicated that Shah was more than tangentially connected to the group. Prashad, interviewed before Shah’s latest statement, called her a “leading figure” of the organization from 1998 to the early 2000s and said her claims of having participated only in the organization’ s earthquake relief efforts were “disingenuous. “

“She was well aware of the politics. And she had been in a leadership role. It was not just happenstance. “