NEW DELHI: Congress on Saturday blamed the Gujarat SIT’s “mischievous” claim, that late party leader Ahmed Patel had orchestrated complaints against the state government regarding the 2002 riots, on PM Modi’s attempt to “absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage”.
Congress said then PM A B Vajpayee had to try to goad his party colleague and then CM to take action with his “rajdharma” remark due to the latter’s “unwillingness” to rein in rioters.
SIT dancing to master’s tune, claims Congress
AICC spokesman Jairam Ramesh said on Saturday Congress “categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured” by the SIT against the late Ahmed Patel over the 2002 Gujarat riots, and lamented PM Modi’s “political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed”.
“This SIT (special investigation team) is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a ‘clean chit’ to the CM,” Ramesh said.
“Giving judgment through press, in an ongoing judicial process, through puppet investigative agencies who trumpet wild allegations as supposed findings, has been the hallmark of the Modi-Shah duo’s tactics for years. This is nothing but another example of the same, with the added object of vilifying a deceased person since he is obviously unable and unavailable to refute such brazen lies,” Ramesh added. “This is part of the PM’s systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed in 2002. It was his unwillingness and incapacity to control this carnage that had led the then PM Vajpayee to remind the CM of his rajdharma.”
