New Delhi:
Minutes before the monsoon session of Parliament began, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the raging storm over the arrest by the CBI of Narendra Modi's close aide, Amit Shah, on charges that include murder.
(Read: Stage set for a stormy Monsoon Session, BJP on the backfoot)"I refute this allegation that the CBI is being used - there is no truth in the allegation that it is the Congress Bureau of Investigation," said Dr Manmohan Singh. "The Opposition knows it jolly well... that it is a Supreme Court directive, the Central government has not tried to influence investigation process in any way," he stressed. (
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At the other end of the faultline created by Shah's arrest, events moved at high velocity. Shah was denied bail, the CBI asked for permission to interrogate him in jail, and a former policeman went to court to turn approver - he will now testify against Shah. (
Watch: Amit Shah case: Senior cop turns approver) The CBI's investigation was ordered - and is being monitored - by the Supreme Court. It revolves around the killing in 2005 of
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a young Muslim man and his wife, by senior police officers from Gujarat. Shah allegedly conspired with them.
(Read: Who was Sohrabuddin Sheikh?)In Delhi, the BJP rebuked the government again for misusing the CBI to settle political scores. Those who the Congress needs, the BJP alleged, have benefitted with CBI cases against them either being dropped or mishandled - it listed the 1984 anti-Sikhs riots as an example. "The CBI gives Jagdish Tytler a clean chit, and then the CBI arrests Amit Shah - that too to protect someone like Sohrabuddin as if he is a national hero. There are so many cases like Mayawati's case, Lalu case...where CBI has bungled under political pressure of the government...we will expose it because CBI has become the political arm of the government" elaborated the saffron party's Venkaiah Naidu. (
Read: Sohrabuddin case: Why did CBI spare YSR govt from inquiry, asks BJP)
But even as it recounted the charges against the CBI, the BJP knows the issue is not voluptuous enough to attract other Opposition parties. So in the monsoon session, it will poke instead at the government's ineptitude in controlling prices - likely to lure other parties, including allies of the government like Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and the DMK.
That concern has led to the Congress ruling out the possibility of a discussion that ends with a vote. "We are not running away with the issues, but they cannot hold us to ransom," said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.