This Article is From Jul 04, 2013

In reactions to Ishrat Jahan chargesheet, Nitish Kumar's party appears to side with Congress

In reactions to Ishrat Jahan chargesheet, Nitish Kumar's party appears to side with Congress
New Delhi: The CBI's conclusion that 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan and three others were shot in a staged encounter in 2004 "in cold blood" in Gujarat has yielded a streak of political recriminations, and more crucially, the newest vestiges of a partnership with game-changing potential.

"Facts are facts. The guilty should be punished," said Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today. Others in his party, the Congress, have been more direct about the implications of the case. "Someday, you will come to know of the real face of the Gujarat Chief Minister," said Congress leader Madhusudan Mistri.

The CBI's findings come as the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, is believed to be within finishing line of grabbing his party's prime ministerial nomination.

In the chargesheet that it filed yesterday, the CBI did not address whether Ishrat and the others who were killed in an alleged joint operation between the Gujarat police and Intelligence Bureau were terrorists headed to assassinate Mr Modi.

"What was her (Ishrat's) track record? With which terror outfit was she linked? There should be a disclosure from the government on this," said BJP president Rajnath Singh.

But the BJP's former ally, the Janata Dal (United), appears to be siding with the Congress, the latest expression of a support system that's expected to result in a formal alliance. "One thing is very clear that the Ishrat encounter was fake and she had nothing to do with terrorism," said Shivanand Tiwari of the Janata Dal (United).

The JD(U) split with the BJP last month after 17 years of collaboration. The party said Mr Modi's recent promotion to campaign chief of the BJP was unacceptable. The Congress voted in favour of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in a trust vote that he won easily. The government it leads at the Centre has also indicated that it's favourably considering Mr Kumar's request for special status for Bihar, which would entitle his state to vast financial assistance from Delhi.

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