Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the parliament on Thursday that the government wasn’t aware of the raids on DMK leader MK Stalin’s Chennai residence two days after the DMK withdrew support to the UPA, the government came under fire from the opposition.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said it was improper for the PM to have made such a statement.
“Merely because it has a political fallout, it is improper for any Prime Minister to so blatantly interfere in the functioning of the CBI and cripple it from carrying on its routine investigations,” Jaitley said.
“If this was a search in the normal course of CBI investigation, the agency is entitled to carry out that search.”
He added: “They can’t condemn a search because it is the job of CBI in connection with their investigation to search premises.”
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury dubbed the CBI “Congress Bureau of Investigation”, adding that it was meant to be a signal to other parties supporting the government not to withdraw.
“The PM has also thrown up his hands. If the PM, as the head of the government, does not know what his government is doing, it is a sad state of affairs,” he said.
BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu said in the Upper House: “You do not know how to run the government, you do not know how to treat your allies...it is nothing but blackmail...”