New Delhi: The BJP parliamentary board yesterday discussed steps to launch an “aggressive” campaign against the UPA government for the coming assembly and Lok Sabha polls while expressing concern over the government using CBI as “a political tool”.
In the first meeting of the parliamentary board after party veteran L K Advani’s resignation episode last month, the party sought to project an image of unity. Advani attended the meeting and sat next to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Advani had resigned from major party posts last month following the appointment of Modi as campaign committee chief of the party for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He relented only after intervention from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The parliamentary board meeting was followed by a meeting of party office bearers.
Briefing reporters after the meetings, which lasted nearly two hours, party general secretary Ananth Kumar said that the parliamentary board discussed the “misuse of CBI by the government”.
The BJP is miffed at the way Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has handled the probe into the Ishrat Jahan case and is apprehensive about the probe reaching the doorstep of former Gujarat minister Amit Shah. Shah, recently appointed Uttar Pradesh in charge, is considered close to Modi.
The CBI charge sheet in the case on Wednesday termed the gunfight as fake and said it was engineered by Guajrat Police and the Intelligence Bureau.
Ananth Kumar alleged the Congress was using CBI as a political tool.
“We condemn the misuse of CBI. We demand that CBI should function independently,” he said.
He said the parliamentary board discussed preparations for assembly polls in five states — Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram — at the end of the year and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
IANS
