New Delhi:
There is relief for Narendra Modi in election year - his close aide and former Gujarat minister
Amit Shah can return to the state after the Supreme Court today rejected a CBI petition that his bail be cancelled in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. But the court has accepted the agency's appeal to shift the case out of Gujarat, agreeing that the atmosphere in the state does not allow for a fair trial.
The case will now be tried in Mumbai, a matter of considerable embarrassment for the Modi administration and the part of today's judgment that will undoubtedly be highlighted by the Congress.
And shortly after the Supreme Court verdict, Mr Shah arrived at the BJP national executive meeting in Surajkund where he said that he will go to Gujarat and campaign for the party.
The Central Bureau of Investigation had sought that the bail granted to Mr Shah by the Gujarat High Court be cancelled on the grounds that he may try to influence witnesses in the case. Mr Shah was the state's powerful minister of state for home till he charged in the case and was subsequently arrested and sent to jail in 2010. After three months in Ahmedabad's Sabarmati jail, the BJP leader was granted bail, but was told last year to leave Gujarat till the Supreme Court decided on the CBI's petition.
Gujarat votes in two months and Amit Shah is a key strategist and crisis manager for the BJP in the state. He can now participate in the election campaign. Post 2002, he played a key role in Mr Modi's political planning and is credited with ensuring the BJP's growing clout in the milk cooperatives that were traditionally Congress held. The BJP cheered the court's decision today. Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said, "We are very sure now that after the court proceedings the final verdict will give justice.We believe that our leader is not guilty."
Mr Shah who is said to have spent much of his months in exile meeting senior party leaders in Delhi to keep alive his relevance, has to contend with ground reality in Gandhinagar. His political isolation has given other BJP leaders like Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel a chance to become powerful. Mr Shah's supporters have complained of being marginalised in the absence of their leader.
Amid all the relief though, a sword still hangs over Mr Shah, who also faces allegatons of involvement and possible arrest in another case. The CBI has filed a chargesheet against Mr Shah in the Tulsiram Prajapati murder case and the Opposition is likely to play on this politically.
In November 2005, a small time history sheeter, Sohrabuddin, and his wife Kauser Bi were allegedly abducted by the Gujarat's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) from Hyderabad and killed in a fake encounter near Gandhinagar in November 2005. Mr Shah was the state's home minister and the CBI alleges that it was under his instructions that the state's top cops acted. Mr Shah was arrested by the CBI on July 25, 2010 and was granted bail in October. But he also had to quit the Modi government .
The two cases Mr Shah is implicated in are connected. The CBI says Tulsi Prajapati was a witness in the Sohrabuddin case and that his killing was part of a larger conspiracy in which Mr Shah, as the then head of the state administration, was involved.