Following the Gujarat Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe charging late Congress leader Ahmed Patel of conspiring and fabricating evidence against Narendra Modi in 2002 riots, the Congress Party said that the “SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to”.

In the affidavit filed by SIT,  activist Teesta Setalvad, retired DGP R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt are charged to be allegedly part of a “larger conspiracy” for “dismissal or destabilisation” by “hook or by crook” of the then state government.

SIT also stated that this was done allegedly at the “behest” of the late Ahmed Patel, who was political advisor to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Refuting the allegation, Congress party stated that the “mischievous charges” against Patel is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002”.

“It was his unwillingness and incapacity to control this carnage that had led the-then Prime Minister of India Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the chief minister of his rajdharma,” said Jairam Ramesh, the AICC General Secretary in a statement.

“The Prime Minister’s political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries. This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a ‘clean chit’ to the chief minister,” he further said.

“This is nothing but another example of the same, with the added object of vilifying a deceased person since he is obviously unable and unavailable to refute such brazen lies,” he added.

Speaking on the same, BJP leader Sambit Patra said that Ahmed Patel was just a name and the real driving force was Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. “Through her chief political advisor Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi tried to malign Gujarat and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image,” he added.

This article first appeared in maktoobmedia.com