Congress, BJP in photo war over hawala operator

New Delhi: After BJP’s video attack against Robert Vadra on Sunday, Congress and the saffron party on Monday entered into a photo war, as the former released pictures depicting Narendra Modi with alleged hawala racketeer Afroz Fatta, the later countered with a photograph showing ruling party’s MP Mohd Azharuddin with the accused.

AICC spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, while releasing the photographs, demanded an impartial probe into Mr Modi’s link with Fatta. Countering the allegation, Mr Modi’s close aide Amit Shah in one of his Twitter post put up a picture depicting Mohd Azharuddin with Fatta, whose House in Surat, Gujarat was recently raided by Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged hawala transactions and arrested him.

Claiming Fatta to be a “well known BJP supporter and a protege of Modi”, Mr Surjewala told reporters that he was arrested by the ED of Ahmedabad and Surat which unearthed a major hawala racket after carrying out a raid at his residence.

The photographs along with a CD was brought out a day after BJP released a video CD targeting Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi and husband of Priyanka Gandhi, over his alleged land deals. Congress has already dismissed the charges as trash.

Maintaining that the racket, according to Enforcement Directorate , exceeds Rs. 1,000 crore and can extend to Rs. 5,000 crore and the transaction of underworld money through the hawala route is suspected, Mr Surjewala posed a number of questions.