NEW DELHI, 11 October 2003 — Opposition parties are feeling the heat after the police slapped charges against two of their leaders while the country’s ruling Hindu nationalists merrily prepare for crucial state polls in December.
The main opposition Congress party is up in arms, charging India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using a federal police agency as a “political weapon” to harass one of its state chief ministers, Ajit Jogi.
The Congress, which rules half of India’s 28 states, attacked the BJP saying the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) was targeting Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Jogi to discredit the opposition ahead of the elections in four states.
The CBI accused Jogi of using forged documents to smear India’s BJP-led coalition government on the same day this week when dates for voting to the crucial states and to New Delhi’s city council were announced.
The five elections are seen as an acid test between the BJP and Congress ahead of national polls, which must be held by the beginning of October 2004.
“It is ridiculous that the CBI has framed charges against one who himself is the complainant,” Jogi angrily said of the CBI reaction to the complaints he had filed with New Delhi against a federal intelligence agency.
“It is shameful that this government is using the CBI as a political weapon to harass the opposition before the elections, which the BJP is bound to lose,” he said.
The BJP, which faces a herculean task of winning in the Congress-ruled states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi legislatures on Dec. 1, saw in Jogi’s discomfiture a chance to corner main opposition leader Sonia Gandhi.
“If she has any morals and responsibility toward this nation then she should immediately remove Jogi,” federal Mines Minister Ramesh Bais said as the irate Congress party on Wednesday called a protest strike in Chhattisgarh.
The Congress rejected the demand to ax Jogi and described the CBI action as an “election gimmick,” as 17 people were taken to Chhattisgarh hospitals with injuries sustained during the strike.
The CBI, meanwhile, ignored the political clashes and Wednesday raided several houses belonging to former Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Mayawati.
She broke off a legislative pact with the BJP and left office in August when the Supreme Court linked her to bribery involved in controversial plans to build a garish mall near the Taj Mahal monument in Uttar Pradesh.
The CBI said Wednesday’s raids were linked to a controversial project cleared by Mayawati to build a highway worth 1.75 billion rupees ($38 million), again near the 17th-century monument.
“The CBI raids have been carried out at the directive of the Supreme Court and it would give its report to the apex court. The government has nothing to do with it,” Law Minister Arun Jaitley said in defense of the BJP.
