New Delhi: The CBI case against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gulab Chand Kataria in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh shootout yesterday led to a war of words between the BJP and the Congress with the former alleging it as a conspiracy by the ruling UPA and the latter questioning the opposition party’s double standards.
“The booking of Kataria is not based on facts. It is a political conspiracy by the UPA to defame our leaders,” BJP president Rajnath Singh told reporters at a news conference here.
“We will fight the case both politically and legally,” he said.
Singh said yesterday that the party stands behind Kataria and it will “expose the attempts” of the CBI and the Congress both “legally and politically”.
Arun Jaitley, BJP’s leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said the case was part of a “well-planned conspiracy” and “there is not a shred of truthful evidence against him”.
Congress leaders hit back at the BJP.
Home Minister Suhilkumar Shinde said that the BJP always cries foul when there are questions over its leaders.
“Whenever there is question about them, they do this. You have seen the Congress does not do misuse the CBI,” Shinde told reporters here. Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed wondered how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was terming the CBI charges against Kataria — who was Rajasthan home minister when Sohrabuddin was killed in 2005 — as not correct, while calling the charges against former railways minister P K Bansal “right”.
Bansal had to quit as railways minister last week following allegations that his nephew took a bribe of Rs9m to fix a post in the plum railway board for an official.
“This is puzzling, that the BJP thinks it is right when the Congress takes action on its own minister for corruption, but when its own people are concerned they say it is witch hunting by the CBI. They should explain,” said Ahmed.
“The CBI has made a certain claim against P K Bansal, and the BJP is saying what the CBI says is true, but when it concerns Kataria, then they say something else. I am at a loss to understand this,” he added.
Kataria, from Rajasthan, is the second high profile politician to be named in the alleged fake encounter case after former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah, considered close to Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
IANS
