Charges against Ahmed Patel mischievous, manufactured: Cong on police claims

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ The Congress on Saturday said the “mischievous” and “manufactured” allegations by the Gujarat police against its late leader Ahmed Patel were part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “systematic strategy” to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage in 2002.The Congress’ rebuttal came after the Gujarat police on Friday opposed activist Teesta Setalvad’s bail application.

In an affidavit before the sessions court, the Special Investigation Team claimed she was part of a “larger conspiracy” carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Patel to get the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state dismissed after the 2002 riots. In a statement, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party “categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured” against the late Ahmed Patel.

“This is part of the Prime Minister’s systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002,” he said. “It was his (Modi’s) unwillingness and incapacity to control this carnage that had led the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the chief minister of his ‘raj dharma’.”