'We Didn't Create Scene': As Shah Recalls Arrest & Pressure to Frame Modi, How then Guj-CM Handled Episode | Rising India Summit

In a bombshell revelation on Wednesday during the Rising India Summit 2023, Home Minister Amit Shah said he had been pressured by federal investigators to ‘frame’ then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case. In an interview with News18 Editor-in-chief Rahul Joshi, Shah also called out the Congress’ reaction on their leader Rahul Gandhi’s conviction and subsequent disqualification, saying the BJP had not come out on the streets ‘wearing black in protest’ when he was arrested and in jail for 3 months. Read excerpts from the interview here

Indeed, after Shah’s arrest, the leader had expressed full faith in the judiciary. “I have full faith in the judiciary and I am sure the allegations against me will be cleared by the courts,” Shah had said after he appeared during a press conference called by state BJP president R C Faldu at the BJP headquarters in Ahmedabad at the time. Live Updates from the Summit

“There is no need to drag Chief Minister Narendra Modi into this issue,” he had also said reply to a reporter’s query. The Congress party at the time had said Modi should also be prepared to face some “uncomfortable” questions in the probe.

Amid Pressure, Modi’s Poise

However, Modi’s poise during the entire episode has often been appreciated by Shah in the past. Modi at the time had stated that Shah was “completely innocent” and that the charges against him were “politically motivated.”

Earlier before Shah’s arrest, Modi had accepted Shah’s resignation from the Gujarat government. Asked by reporters whether the resignation amounted to accepting that Shah was guilty, Modi had said, “He was accepting it because under the Constitution, certain formalities have to be fulfilled”. He had said Shah would fight the issue legally and expressed confidence that judiciary would provide him justice.

Attacking the Congress, Modi had said, “The case against Shah was a revenge for its loss in the 2007 assembly polls when it had made Sohrabuddin a hero. This was a politically motivated action against Amit Shah and the BJP government in Gujarat to corner it and to put obstacles in development work it was carrying out”. He had added, “Shah is completely innocent and the charges against him are fabricated. The CBI is being misused by the Congress against its political rival”.

Years later, while campaigning in Gujarat in 2019, PM Modi had recalled the incident, of UPA government arresting BJP president Amit Shah and some police officers in Gujarat to topple the state government then headed by him.

“Our police officers, and even Amit Shah, were thrown behind bars. They (UPA) employed all means to break the Gujarat government,” Modi said, alluding to the time when he was chief minister of the state. It was the same rally in 2019 that Modi also criticised Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against the Modi community, due to which he has been convicted now, and disqualified from the Lok Sabha.

‘They Wanted Me to Frame Modi’

During the News18 interview, Shah said, “I want to remind Rahul Gandhi that hundreds of Opposition leaders were sent to jail during the Emergency and there was no provision of bail. Here, now, we have that, you can go to court. I will tell you how the law was misused, I was the victim.”

“The Congress did not file a corruption case against us. An encounter took place, and I was the home minister of that state, and the CBI registered a case against me and they arrested me. The CBI recorded me, which should still be there if the Congress had not removed it. In 90% of CBI’s questions, the refrain was ‘why are you getting tense? Just take Modi’s name, and we will free you.’ We did not wear black clothes, we did not protest.”

Shah recalled how an SIT was formed against the CM (Narendra Modi). “There was no corruption case. There was a fake riot case filed, which the Supreme Court had dismissed. We did not create a hue and cry. We never wore black clothes and blocked the workings of Parliament. And I will tell you the result, they arrested me, I got bail within 90 days by the High Court, which said there are no evidence against me. I applied for acquittal in a Mumbai court, the case was taken out of Gujarat, where it said the CBI filed the case on the grounds of political vendetta that’s why we quash all charges against Amit Shah. We didn’t create a scene.”

With inputs from PTI

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