Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said on Monday that the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre had unleashed a reign of terror through central investigation agencies against opposition leaders ahead of the Lok Sabha elections with the ulterior motive of silencing them.
He said the BJP wanted to stay in power “by hook or by crook” and was using the CBI as an “election agent”.
Akhilesh Yadav’s remarks came against the backdrop of West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s sit-in over the CBI’s attempt to question the Kolkata police commissioner in connection with the chit fund scam.
“The BJP wants to stay in power by hook or by crook and is using the CBI as an election agent. They (he BJP) are so scared of losing the Lok Sabha elections and the CBI is being used as election agents,” Yadav tweeted on Sunday night.
“If I go to Kolkata to attend the rally, the Enforcement Directorate starts conducting raids in Lucknow and other places. If I meet Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati, then the CBI is unleashed against us. What the CBI has done in Kolkata is undemocratic and unconstitutional and come what may, the opposition leaders will not be deterred by such tactic and will continue to fight,” the SP president said, addressing a meeting of the party legislators here on Monday.
“We demand due process be followed so that the CBI is not used as a tool of political interference,” he said.
An all-out war broke out between the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee government on Sunday with the feisty West Bengal leader beginning her sit-in protest in front of Metro Cinema in Kolkata to protest against “the attack on constitutional norms”.
While Yadav spoke to Banerjee on Sunday night, SP leader Kiranmoy Nanda reached the protest venue on Monday morning to express his party’s solidarity with Banerjee over the issue.
Banerjee, who is one of the prime movers behind the effort to cobble an anti-BJP alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, has alleged that Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah want to impose President’s rule in states where non-BJP party is in power.