New Delhi:
In front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament, the BJP on Thursday protested against what it describes as the misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the UPA government.
"This government has for long been misusing the CBI as a political tool. They dangle it as a Damocles' Sword in front of Chief Ministers and former Chief Ministers who have cases against them," said party leader Sushma Swaraj.
But others says the BJP's protests are a visible sign of its discomfort with the direction taken by inquiries into the Gujarat riots of 2002 and the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Shaikh in 2005.
A committee appointed by the Supreme Court has questioned Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the state's communal riots in 2002. And January 2010, the court asked for the Sohrabuddin case to be handed over to the CBI (it was being investigated by the Gujarat CID).
During the last fortnight, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has met party veteran LK Advani in Delhi, and Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the BJP's parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in Nagpur. Modi has reportedly expressed concern that the CBI is exploiting its investigation to summon former and current senior policemen to unnerve the state's administrators and its police force.
"The Congress is trying to target and destabilise the government," says the BJP's Gopinath Munde.
In Gujarat, Modi's bureaucracy is worried after the arrest last week of senior police officer Abhay Chudasama. The chief of Ahmedabad's crime branch, Chudasama has been accused of conspiring to murder Sohrabuddin, who was abducted from a bus in 2005, then taken to a farmhouse, and then shot on a highway, allegedly by the state police.
Chudasama is close to Modi's right-hand man, Minister of State for Home Amit Shah.
The CBI has also summoned six other senior IPS officers for questioning, including Geeta Johri, who was heading the inquiry into the Sohrabuddin case till the Supreme Court asked the CBI to take over on the grounds that Johri's team was deliberately moving too slowly and presenting conflicting information.
The committee looking into the Gujarat riots is expected to deliver its report to the Supreme Court before May 15. If it says Modi cannot be held responsible for the riots, the Chief Minister may have the ammunition he needs to accuse the union government of persecuting his officers and bureaucrats through the CBI.