BJP to tackle Opposition claims

New Delhi: As the Opposition tries to target the Narendra Modi government over the alleged misuse of the investigative agencies, the BJP has decided to take the fight to the rivals’ home turf.

The ruling party will take the “fight against corruption” to the home states of the Opposition leaders who had recently written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the “political witch hunt” threatening India’s democracy. The BJP, sources said, will hold press conferences in at least nine states, including Telangana, Delhi, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala and Maharashtra to counter the Opposition parties’ allegations.

The press conferences will be held to justify the investigative agencies’ move to “fight” corruption and that the government was “not indulging in any political witch hunt”.

However, the Opposition is likely to take on the government over the “misuse” of the investigative agencies in the second part of the Budget Session of Parliament resuming from March 13.

While the ED recently arrested Delhi’s deputy CM Manish Sisodia over the alleged scam in the now rolled-back excise policy, the agency has summoned BRS supremo and Telangana CM K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha in the same case. The CBI had questioned RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav recently in the railway “land for jobs” scam.

 Among those who signed the letter on Sunday was former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, RJD leader and Bihar deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a separate letter.

The letter by the Opposition parties leaders, which was also signed by NCP’s Sharad Pawar and BRS’ K. Chandrasekhar Rao, among others, came days after the arrest of AAP leader and former deputy CM of Delhi Manish Sisodia in the alleged Delhi liquor scam, in which the ED has summoned Mr Rao’s daughter and MLC K. Kavitha. Telangana is one of the crucial states where Assembly elections are scheduled this year and where the BJP has been desperately trying to expand its organizational base.

BJP leaders, including Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Suvendu Adhikari, Bihar unit chief Sanjay Jaiswal, his counterpart in Telangana Bandi Sanjay Kumar, among other senior leaders in targeted states, will be taking on the Opposition parties and countering the allegations made in the letters.

In the letter to the PM, the Opposition leaders have also mentioned that ever since the NDA government came to power in 2014, among the political leaders booked, arrested, raided or interrogated, the maximum are from Opposition parties, while the investigative agencies go slow in cases against those leaders who later join the BJP.