Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 29, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sonia-raj-gives-foreign-kin-relief-me-jail-modi/452358/0
A day after the Supreme Court ordered a probe
against his role in the 2002 post-Godhra riots, Chief Minister Narendra Modi,
in his first public response to the order, accused the Congress of hatching
a conspiracy to put him behind bars.
Addressing a rally in Anand on the last day
of campaigning on Tuesday, a belligerent Modi went so far as to hint that
the Congress may have influenced the SC order.
The apex court, in response to a petition
filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of slain former Congress MP Ehsaan Jafri, on Monday
asked the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the role of Modi and 62
others in the 2002 communal carnage.
Stating that he had taken a "serious"
note of the order, Modi said, "Once again the Supreme Court has remembered
me. You tell me what should I do? Fifteen days ago, Kapil Sibal, a Congress
leader and minister in the UPA government and a senior advocate, had said
that Modi should be prepared to go to jail. And exactly 15 days later, the
SC has tightened the noose on me. What does it mean? Has the Congress party
conspired against me? This is the question coming to my mind."
"On the one hand a foreign relative of
Sonia (Gandhi), Quattrocchi, has been given a clean chit by the CBI. Everybody
knows who controls the CBI. On the other hand, a conspiracy is hatched to
send me, the son of soil, to jail," he added.
Modi also said he was not afraid of going
behind bars for the people of the land. "In spite of all this, I will
not stop my fight against terrorism. Delhi can keep me in any jail but nobody
will be able to stop me."
