Any move to target Modi will boomerang on Cong: BJP

Striking a combative note after the resignation of Gujarat home minister Amit Shah, the BJP today said it fully supported chief minister Narendra Modi and any move to target him will boomerang on the Congress.

"The Congress needs to learn that the more they try to scratch Modi, it will boomerang on them," party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

He ruled out any possibility of Modi stepping down as demanded by the Congress. Shah, a close aide of Modi, resigned today after the CBI brought murder and kidnapping charges against him in the fake encounter killing of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi in 2005.

Prasad alleged that the UPA government was trying to frame the Gujarat home minister in a case against Sohrabuddin from whom several AK-47s were recovered and who was linked to the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

"This is a Congress design to divert attention from the fiasco in Pakistan, the mess-up in Kashmir, price rise, rotting of grains and the historical mess-up on Warren Anderson," he said.

Prasad said the BJP will expose the "duplicity and misuse" of the CBI by the Congress.

"We will expose this device of distraction adopted by the Congress, we have enough ammunition to nail this government on the abuse of the CBI," he said.

On P Chidambram's statement that the BJP should have objected when Shah's name first figured in the case, Prasad said the home minister has been in the Congress for long and would remember "how the CBI was used to help Bofors accused Ottavio Quattrochi escape, to give a clean chit to Jagdish Tytler (in anti-Sikh riots) and a 'bounty' to Satish Sharma (apparent reference to petrol pump allotment scam."

"We have seen how the CBI was abused as a tool to manage Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati," he said.

He further alleged that though "Rs2000 crore were recovered from the chamber" of UPA Minister A Raja, the prime minister did not take any action.

On Amit Shah's resignation, the party said he was being framed and that it stood by him.

The party said the "mischievous designs of the CBI" will be exposed in court. "We have always had the highest regard for our judicial system and always cooperate with law, so there will be a legal fight," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.

He maintained that though Shah has resigned, the party was fully with him and will be raising its voice against "abuse of the CBI for political purposes."
"He will fight against the mischievous designs of the CBI in the court and the truth will be upheld," Javadekar said.