- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday (29) said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the country’s elite investigative agency, was “putting pressure” on him to “frame” prime minister Narendra Modi in an alleged fake encounter case in the western state of Gujarat when he was being questioned by the probe agency during the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat before becoming the prime minister in 2014.
Shah, who is the second most powerful man in India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after Modi, said this at the ‘News 18 Rising India’ programme in response to a question on Opposition’s charge that the Modi government is “misusing’ central agencies to target them.
The CBI “was putting pressure” on me to “frame Modi ji” (when he was Gujarat chief minister) in an alleged fake encounter case during the Congress government,” he said, adding that the BJP never raised a ruckus despite this. On Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a criminal defamation case by a court in Surat, Gujarat, the home minister said the Congress leader was not the only politician who was convicted by a court and lost membership of the legislature.
Instead of moving to a higher court, Gandhi has been trying to create hue and cry and blaming Modi for his fate, he said.
Shah, who had been the minister of state in the Gujarat government during Modi’s chief ministerial reign, said Gandhi should go to a higher court to fight his case, instead of trying to put the blame on the prime minister.
He said the Congress is spreading misconception; conviction can’t be stayed. “The sentence can be stayed if the court decides,” he said.
“He has not appealed to take stay on his conviction. What kind of arrogance is this? You want a favour. You want to continue to be MP and will also not go before the Court,” Shah said.
Where does such arrogance get generated, he asked.
The home minister said 17 prominent leaders, including Lalu Prasad, J Jayalalitha and Raashid Alvi, had lost their membership because of a 2013 Supreme Court order during the UPA government, which said an elected representative would lose his seat immediately after conviction. Still, no one protested wearing black clothes because it is the “law of the land”, he said.
“Listen to the full speech of Rahul Gandhi, he has not only spoken abusive words for Modi ji, he has spoken abusive words for the entire Modi community and OBC society,” he said.
“The law of the land is clear. There is no question of vendetta politics. It is the judgment of the Supreme Court of India, which had come during their government,” Shah added.
Asked about the notice to vacate his bungalow, Shah asked why there should be “special favour” when the apex court had said to act as soon as the conviction comes into effect.
“It was a deliberate statement by Rahul Gandhi. If Rahul Gandhi did not want to apologise, then he should not have applied for bail. Let him not apologise,” Shah said.
“This gentleman is not the first one. Politicians who held much bigger positions and with much more experience have lost their membership because of this provision,” the home minister said. He said India’s democracy wasn’t threatened when Lalu Prasad was disqualified but it is endangered only when a person from the Gandhi family is disqualified.
“Now it has come on him, so they are saying make a separate law for the Gandhi family. I want to ask the people of this country whether there should be a separate law for a single family. What kind of mentality is this? Whatever happens, they start blaming Modi ji and the Lok Sabha Speaker,” Shah said.
He said senior lawyers who are Congress MPs in Rajya Sabha should tell their colleagues that Lok Sabha Speaker has no role in the disqualification.
“It is the law of the country that all his speeches in Parliament would have to be erased from the records from the moment of his conviction. Even if his disqualification notice were served a few days later, it would have no purpose,” he said.
Mr Shah said the BJP did not want changes in the Supreme Court order. The Manmohan Singh government brought an Ordinance to blunt the top court order, but Rahul Gandhi tore it apart, calling it “nonsense”.
“Once he tore it apart, who in his government would have dared to turn it into law? It was vetoed. Had that ordinance become a law, he could have been saved,” Shah added.
(With PTI inputs)
