'By charging Ahmad Patel, Modi trying to absolve himself of 2002 riots'

The Indian opposition (Indian National) Congress on Saturday (16) alleged that the charges levelled by the Gujarat police against late party leader Ahmed Patel were part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage" of 2002.

The Congress' rebuttal came a day after the Gujarat police's Special Investigation Team (SIT) submitted an affidavit in a court in Ahmedabad stating that arrested activist Teesta Setalvad was part of a "larger conspiracy" carried out at the behest of Ahmed Patel with the political objective of "dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government in Gujarat by hook or by crook".

In a statement, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party "categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured" against the late Ahmed Patel.

"This is part of the prime minister's systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002," he said.

Patel's daughter Mumtaz reacted sharply to the allegations, saying her father's name still holds weight to be used for "political conspiracies" to malign the Opposition. "So their campaign for Gujarat election has begun by dragging Ahmed Patel's name in conspiracy theories. They did it before election when he was alive & are still doing it when he is no more," she tweeted.

"Why during UPA years @TeestaSetalvad was not rewarded & made Rajya Sabha member and why the Centre uptil 2020 did not prosecute my father for hatching such a big conspiracy?" she said in another tweet which was retweeted by her brother Faisal Patel from his verified Twitter handle.

Ramesh alleged that it was Modi's unwillingness and incapacity to control the 2002 Gujarat "carnage" that had led the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the chief minister of his 'raj dharma'. The prime minister's "political vendetta machine" clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries, the Congress general secretary said.

"This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a 'clean chit' to the chief minister," Ramesh said.

He alleged giving judgment through the press, in an ongoing judicial process, through "puppet investigative agencies who trumpet wild allegations as supposed findings", has been the hallmark of the Modi-Shah duo's tactics for years. "This is nothing but another example of the same with the added object of vilifying a deceased person since he is unable and unavailable to refute such brazen lies," Ramesh alleged.

In a press conference, BJP's spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that Ahmed Patel, who was Sonia Gandhi's political adviser, was just the medium through which she acted to destabilise the BJP government in the state and damage Prime Minister Modi's political career.

Hitting back at the BJP, Congress' media department head Pawan Khera said whenever elections approach, the BJP, PM Modi and "his ecosystem" put forward "new theories" and even drag names of Muslim leaders. "In the last assembly polls, Prime Minister Modi's ecosystem suddenly came up with talk of conspiracy against Modi at a dinner in Jangpura in which ex-army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor, former prime minister Manmohan Singh as well as many noted personalities were present. "They said Pakistan was also involved," Khera said at a press conference at AICC headquarters in Delhi.