File pic: Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh
Mulayam Singh Yadav has been cleared of charges that he misused his office as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. The CBI today said that it has closed the case that began in 2007, ceding that there is "grossly insufficient evidence" against the chief of the Samajwadi Party.
The opposition said that Mr Yadav's exoneration proves that the country's premier investigating agency is used by the CBI to protect friends and persecute opponents.
The Samajwadi Party does not participate in the ruling coalition at the Centre, but its external support props up the Prime Minister's minority government.
"If Congress needs support from any of its allies, then they automatically get a clean chit. If any party denies support, then the CBI guns for them. Be it the Samajwadi Party or BSP (of Mayawati), this game has been going for a long time. As long as the Congress is in the Centre, such things will go on," said BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
The CBI said today that it had originally charged Mr Yadav with accumulating nearly Rs 2.63 crores of disproportionate assets which could not be explained by his income, it re-did its math and found that in many cases, it had mistakenly included in the politician's income many loans taken by him, including one for the Australian college education of his son, Akhilesh, who is now chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
The agency said that it re-examined its calculations after the Supreme Court ruled in December that Akhilesh's wife, Dimple, should not be included in the investigation. Though she is now a parliamentarian, the judges said, she did not hold public office for the years under scrutiny.
The CBI said that allegations that Mr Yadav and his children were the real owners of property registered in the names of others remained unproven.