Bengaluru: With senior Congress leader, D K Shivakumar being summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to New Delhi following the income tax raids on his property, almost all the top guns of the party like former CM Siddaramaiah and KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao on Friday accused PM Modi of using the Central agencies to harass opposition leaders.
The fact that the CBI only recently took former Union minister, P. Chidambaram into custody, has left the Congress leaders in the state worried that Mr. Shivakumar could face a similar fate. Many leaders set aside their personal differences with the Vokkaliga strongman, to come out in his support and accuse the BJP of a witch-hunt.
Said Mr Dinesh Gundurao, “The entire country knows how the BJP carries out a witch-hunt against opposition leaders. Using Central agencies to harass, trouble and blackmail leaders and force them to join hands with it is a common tactic of the saffron party.” Strongly backing Mr Shivakumar, he claimed he had been targeted by the BJP for years, but he would deal with things legally.
Mr Siddaramaiah too alleged that Central agencies had become tools of harassment in the hands of the BJP at the Centre and claimed Mr Shivakumar was being targeted as he had sheltered 44 party MLAs from Gujarat to stop them from being poached in a Rajya Sabha election some years ago. “He succeeded in putting a stop to the Gujarat version of the BJP’s Operation Lotus,” he said, claiming that Mr Shivakumar was now paying for it.
