Congress, BJP lock horns over Gujarat SIT’s charges against Ahmed Patel

The Congress described the charges labelled against the late politician as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for communal carnage” unleashed during his term as chief minister of Gujarat.

An affidavit of Gujarat Police’s special investigation team (SIT) naming late Congress leader Ahmed Patel in a case pertaining to the 2002 Gujarat riots triggered a political row on Saturday after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of attempting to “malign” the name of the state through her former political advisor.

Congress leader Ahmed Patel succumbed to Covid-19 in November 2020.

The Congress, however, claimed the charges levelled against Patel were part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for communal carnage” unleashed during his term as chief minister of Gujarat.

Patel succumbed to Covid-19 in November 2020. His daughter, in a tweet, said the Congress veteran’s name continues to “hold weight” even after his death to be used for “political conspiracies”.

The war of words between the two sides came a day after the SIT informed a Gujarat court that a larger conspiracy to destabilise an elected government soon after a train in Godhra was set on fire in 2002 was carried out by activist Teesta Setalvad at the behest of Patel.

The SIT, while opposing the bail plea of Setalvad, also claimed in an affidavit that the activist held meetings with Patel and also received ₹30 lakh from a witness on the Congress leader’s instructions.

Addressing reporters, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged Gandhi was the “actual driving force” behind the “conspiracy” to destablise the Gujarat government after the 2002 riots and implicate then chief minister Modi.

“With a clear conscience, we besiege Sonia Gandhi to come and hold a press conference and address the nation as to why she was conspiring against Narendra Modi,” Patra said.

Gandhi hatched a conspiracy to malign Gujarat and corner Modi with an aim to damage him and the BJP to promote her son Rahul Gandhi, he added.

The reality has been revealed in the affidavit, that there was a conspiracy but who were the ones that were driving these conspiracies, the spokesperson asked. “It was Ahmed Patel, former Rajya Sabha MP and former chief political advisor to Congress president Sonia Gandhi,” he said.

“Sonia Gandhi tried to malign the image of Gujarat using Ahmed Patel’s name. She tried to dismiss and destablise the then state government led by Narendra Modi,” he added.

The BJP spokesperson alleged that Setalvad first wanted to destabilise the publicly-elected Modi government in Gujarat. “The second objective was to frame innocent people including the then chief minister Narendra Modi. The affidavit says that this conspiracy was to malign the image of Gujarat,” he said.

Hitting back, the Congress claimed the SIT is “dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to”.

“The Indian National Congress categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured against the late Shri Ahmed Patel… The Prime Minister’s political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries,” Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said in a statement.

Modi’s “unwillingness and incapacity” to control the 2002 riots had led the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to remind the former about his ‘raj dharma’, he added.

While Patel’s son, Faisal Patel, refused to comment on the matter, his daughter Mumtaz Patel questioned why her father was not prosecuted for “hatching such a big conspiracy” against Modi till 2020.

“They did it (in the) before election when he was alive & are still doing it when he is no more,” Mumtaz tweeted.

“I guess his name @ahmedpatel still holds weight to be used for political conspiracies to malign the opposition. Why during UPA years @TeestaSetalvad was not rewarded & made Rajya Sabha member & why the Centre up till 2020 did not prosecute my father for hatching such a big conspiracy?” she said in another tweet.

Setalvad was arrested on June 25, a day after the Supreme Court ruled out a larger conspiracy behind 2002 Gujarat riots and expressed the need to proceed against those “disgruntled officers of the State of Gujarat and others” whose “coalesced efforts was to create sensation by making false revelations”.