A day after the CBI chargesheeted former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in a corruption case and moved the Supreme Court for reopening the Bofors scam probe, the Congress on Sunday accused the Modi Government of targeting political opponents by implicating them in false cases to divert people's attention from the “paralysis of governance”.
Claiming that the Modi Government had unleashed cases against its leaders to distract attention from its failure at every level, Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said that the party would not be cowed down by “such political vendetta”.
Citing the example of the Bofors case, he alleged that the Modi Government was trying to keep the issue alive to defame the Congress.
The CBI on Saturday filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging a 2005 order of the Delhi High Court quashing all charges against the accused persons in the politically-sensitive Bofors pay-off case.
“The Modi Government is indulging in political vendetta by lodging Congress leaders in false cases. As its political graph is falling down, the Government is getting Congress leaders implicated in baseless and false cases through CBI and other agencies.
“But, Congress leaders will fight these conspiracies and false criminal cases with full rigour,” he told reporters here. Former Haryana Chief Minister Hooda and 33 others were on Saturday chargesheeted by the CBI in the case of alleged corruption in Manesar land deals worth over Rs 1,500 crore, in which around 200 farmers were cheated.
Surjewala also targeted the Haryana Government, alleging that these cases were also being used as a ploy to divert the attention from the abject “failure” of the State Government in Haryana, where law and order has “broken down completely and anarchy prevails”.
He said that several Congress leaders such as Bhupender Singh Hooda, Virbhadra Singh, Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, P Chidambaram and his family, Ashok Chavan, Sheila Dikshit and Harish Rawat have been booked in false cases.
“There is public outrage against the Modi Government in the country. The Government wants to throttle Opposition voice,” the Congress leader said.He said that the BJP-led Government is using agencies such as the CBI as their “captive puppets”.
Rank politicisation of CBI by Modi Government to seek revenge against opposition leaders is writ large in successive cases,” he also said.
According to the CBI FIR in the Manesar case, it is alleged that on August 27, 2004 and August 25, 2005, the Haryana Government issued separate notifications for the acquisition of 912 acres of land for setting up an industrial model township at Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula villages in Gurgaon.