What Amit Shah Said When He Was Arrested in Sohrabuddin Case, vs Cong's Reaction on Rahul's Conviction | Rising India Summit

In an interview with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi at the News18 Rising India Summit on Wednesday, Home Minister Amit Shah recalled how he had suffered during the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case, amid pressure to ‘frame’ then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Live Updates from the Summit

“In 90 per cent of the questions during my interrogation, I was asked why I was getting bothered and they said they would leave me if I name Narendra Modi. Even then, we did not protest or wear black clothes or stop Parliament’s functioning. An SIT was formed against Modi which the Supreme Court itself dismissed.” Read excerpts from the interview here

Ever since Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a defamation case, and his subsequent disqualification from the Lok Sabha as per rules, the Congress has been alleging misuse of central agencies by the ruling BJP, and ‘vendetta politics.’

With Parliament functioning in a logjam, prominent Congress leaders, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, senior leader Sonia Gandhi and others have also been wearing black as a show of protest against the action. Various Congress factions have also staged agitations across states in support of Rahul.

“Make no mistake. All your attempts to create a chilling effect, a throttling effect, a strangulating effect on open fearless speech relating to public influence will not stop either Rahul Gandhi or the Congress Party,” party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi had told a news conference after the conviction.

However, Shah said Gandhi was not the only politician who has lost membership of the legislature after being convicted by a court and there was nothing to create a hue and cry about it. “He has not appealed to take stay on his conviction. What kind of arrogance is this? You want favour. You want to continue as an MP and will also not go before the court,” he said, adding from where such arrogance comes from.

“This gentleman is not the first one. Politicians who held much bigger positions and with much more experience have lost their membership because of this provision,” the home minister said.

Shah also said the people of India had seen everything under the Congress regime but “we never took to the roads in black clothes to protest”. “Have faith in the law if you are innocent,” he added.

‘Full Faith in Judiciary’

When Shah was arrested in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh ‘fake’ encounter case in 2010, he 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 said after he appeared during a press conference called by state BJP president R C Faldu at the BJP headquarters in Ahmedabad.

Shah claimed that he was innocent and said that charges against him were “fabricated, politically motivated and were on the instruction of Congress government” and demanded that his entire questioning by the CBI should be video-graphed.

Before his arrest, Shah had said, “The incident happened five years back. But the CBI acted in such haste that they did not even give me enough time to reply. I will respond to all the charges and will expose the people who are behind bringing of these allegations.

“This is a ploy of the Congress government to carry out our political encounter as the party has not come to power in Gujarat for the last 20 years. I will fight the legal battle in the court of law and the party will fight the political battle at political level,” the BJP leader had said.

Shah had said, “Congress leaders are saying that Sohrabuddin was a petty criminal. It was Sohrabuddin from whose house more than 40 AK-47, 100 hand grenades and ammunition worth Rs 1 lakh were recovered. He was wanted by the police of five states and he had 40 cases against him.” Read the timeline of the case here

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