Tag : mischievous

New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday said the "mischievous" and "manufactured" allegations by the Gujarat police against its late leader Ahmed Patel were part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "systematic strategy" to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage in 2002. The Congress' rebuttal came a day after the Gujarat police's Special Investigation Team submitted an affidavit in a court in Ahmedabad stating that arrested activist Teesta Setalvad was part of a "larger conspiracy" carried out at the behest of Ahmed Patel with the political objective of "dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government in Gujarat by hook or by crook". In a statement, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party "categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured" against the late Ahmed Patel. "This is part of the Prime Minister's systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002," he said. "It was his (Modi's) unwillingness and incapacity to control this carnage that had led the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the chief minister of his raj dharma." Patel's daughter Mumtaz reacted sharply to the allegations, saying her father's name still holds weight to be used for "political conspiracies" to malign the Opposition. "So their campaign for Gujarat election has begun by dragging Ahmed Patel's name in conspiracy theories. They did it before election when he was alive & are still doing it when he is no more," she tweeted. "Why during UPA years @TeestaSetalvad was not rewarded & made Rajya Sabha member and why the Centre uptil 2020 did not prosecute my father for hatching such a big conspiracy?" she s ...