The former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the ruling BJP will not succeed in its designs to ‘finish the Opposition’.

Speaking to reporters in Mysuru on Wednesday, Mr. Siddaramaiah described the arrest of Congress leader and former Minister D.K. Shivakumar by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as ‘politically motivated’.

The arrest of Mr. Shivakumar by the ED and former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram by the CBI were both party of ruling BJP’s ‘political vendetta’. “They want to finish Opposition leaders one by one. But, they will not succeed,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.

The BJP’s efforts to muzzle the Opposition and threaten democracy showed its dictatorial attitude. He sought to know how the BJP could question Mr. Shivakumar for the role he played during the shifting of Gujarat MLAs to Bengaluru and their safekeeping in a resort on the outskirts of the city.

“They are Congress MLAs and Mr. Shivakumar was well within his rights to defend the party’s interests,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said and added that clearly, the BJP was indulging in vengeful politics.

Contending that the party would stand by Mr. Shivakumar both politically and legally, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the Congress will hold protests at the district and taluk levels across the State denouncing the arrest.

Mr. Siddaramaiah questioned the need for the ED to arrest Mr. Shivakumar. “Did he violate the summons (issued by ED)? Didn’t he go whenever he was called? Where was the need to arrest him?”, he asked. They could have arrested him only if there was a threat of destruction of evidence or his escape.

“There was no such thing,” he said. He rejected the ED’s argument that they had to arrest Mr. Shivakumar for ‘non-cooperation’ during questioning. “If he was not co-operating, what else was he doing during the four days,” he questioned. “Non-cooperation is only an excuse to arrest him,”, Mr. Siddaramaiah said.