'Attempts to target Modi will boomerang on Cong'

Striking a combative note after the resignation of Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday said it fully supported Chief Minister Narendra Modi and any move to target him will "boomerang" on the Congress.

"The Congress needs to learn that the more they try to scratch Modi, It will boomerang on them," party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

He ruled out any possibility of Modi stepping down as demanded by the Congress. Shah, a close aide of Modi, resigned on Saturday after the Central Bureau of Investigation brought murder and kidnapping charges against him in the fake encounter killing of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi in 2005.

Prasad alleged that the UPA government was trying to frame the Gujarat Home Minister in a case against Sohrabuddin from whom several AK-47s were recovered and who was linked to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

"This is the Congress design to divert attention from the fiasco in Pakistan, the mess-up in Kashmir, price rise, rotting of grains and the historical mess-up on Warren Anderson," he said.

Prasad said the BJP will expose the "duplicity and misuse" of the CBI by the Congress.

"We will expose this device of distraction adopted by the Congress.... we have enough ammunition to nail this government on the abuse CBI," he said.

On Home Minister P Chidambram's statement that the BJP should have objected when Shah's name first figured in the case, Prasad said the Home Minister has been in the Congress for long and would remember 'how CBI was used to help Bofors accused Ottavio Quattrochi escape, to give a clean chit to Jagdish Tytler (in anti-Sikh riots) and a 'bounty' to Satish Sharma (apparent reference to petrol pump allotment scam).'

"We

have seen how CBI was abused as a tool to manage Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati," he said.

He further alleged that though "Rs 2000 crore were recovered from the chamber" of UPA Minister A Raja, the Prime Minister did not take any action.

On Amit Shah's resignation, the party said he was being framed and it stood by him.

"BJP took a position that once the chargesheet was filed, which we will contest strongly as it is a frame-up, he (Shah) resigned immediately. This the standard of BJP," it said.

The party said the "mischievous designs of the CBI" will be exposed in court. "We have always had the highest regard for our judicial system and always cooperate with law, so there will be a legal fight," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.

He maintained that though Shah has resigned, the party was fully with him and will be raising its voice against "abuse of CBI for political purposes."

"He will fight against the mischievous designs of CBI in the court and the truth will be upheld," Javadekar said.