Congress, BJP cross swords over Karnataka raids

New Delhi: As Congress charged the ruling BJP of “vendetta” and misusing income-tax department and Central agencies to scare its Gujarat MLAs, the BJP dismissed it and claimed that the I-T searches on properties linked to Karnataka minister D.K. Shivakumar were aimed at tracking tax evaders.

The Congress charged that the ruling party was trying to create a “fear psychosis” and “despite the use of manpower, money power, muscle power and “Modi power”, its candidate and senior leader Ahmed Patel will win the RS polls. The BJP has fielded its party president Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and former Congress leader Balwantsinh Rajput.

The Congress also approached the Election Commission seeking adequate security arrangements for its MLAs ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat for three seats.

The Congress delegation, which included senior leaders Kapil Sibal, Rajiv Shukla, Manish Tewari, Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha, Randeep Surjewala and Madhu Goud, sought EC’s intervention in ensuring that no coercive steps were taken against its MLAs in order to “force” them to switch sides.

“As a constitutional watchdog for ensuring transparency, free and fair elections, we implore the Election Commission to immediately issue appropriate directions to ensure that the safety and security of the MLAs is not jeopardised and their liberties protected to enable them to effectively cast their votes on August 8,” said the Congress memorandum to the EC.

Rejecting Congress’s charges, senior leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the exercise carried out by the I-T department was aimed at tracking tax evaders.

“Nothing has been done as vendetta. No Gujarat MLA has been summoned, investigated. No Gujarat MLA staying there has been raided. The raided man is the Karnataka minister, nothing to do with Gujarat,” the HRD minister said.

After meeting the EC, Mr Sibal said, “They tried to deter/scare the MLAs there. It never happened so in the history. It is for the first time that the central forces, that too CRPF men with AK-47, went to a state without asking the state government concerned first. This has happened for the first time in India’s history....They are aware...Our MLAs were being threatened, deterred; their families were being threatened, deterred. Hence, it was required that they were taken to Bengaluru. They are aware we took them there from security point of view”. Still, they want to deter our MLAs. We suspect they will try to arrest our MLAs somehow so that they cannot take part in voting for the August 8 Rajya Sabha election.”

The Congress leaders also alleged that they feared the Gujarat police will lodge false cases against their MLAs and try and arrest them to prevent them from voting in the August 8 election.

“This strikes at the root of our democratic traditions,” the party said, adding that the safety and security of MLAs and protection of their personal liberties is a sine qua non for exercising their franchise on August 8.