Former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah who is named as one of the accused in the Sohrabuddhin Sheikh fake encounter case, on Sunday maintained that he had been falsely implicated in the fake encounter case as a result of a political vendetta.
Shah, took over as the new national general secretary of the BJP in team Rajnath Singh, stated that he would come out clean in the criminal proceedings initiated against him in the fake encounter case in the court.
While denying that he was refused a berth in the Gujarat Cabinet on account of a criminal case registered against him for his alleged involvement in the Sohrabuddhin Sheikh fake encounter case, Shah maintained : ‘I consider the post of BJP national general secretary far more bigger,’ while addressing a press conference here at the State BJP headquarters.
The former Gujarat Home Minister had arrived in the city to participate in a dharna-cum-demonstration to protest the Congress-led UPA Government’s misuse of the CBI.
launching a scathing attack on the UPA rule at the Centre, Shah said that it had failed on all fronts and terming it as a ‘Government of scams and brokers.’ ‘There has been no limit to the number of scams unearthed during the UPA rule beginning from Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum, Robert Vadra to Defence Helicopter purchase with the latest being the coal block allotment scam’, he said.
The CAG and the CBI have estimated the size of coal block allotment scam to be in the range of `12 lakh crore. The amount is so huge that the money could have run Chhattisgarh’s economy for the next 25 years, Shah said.
“The prices under UPA rule have skyrocketed to the levels that the common man is struggling to make a living. This Government (UPA) has failed in diplomacy and its policies remain unclear on maintenance of internal and external security,” the BJP national general secretary said.
“The UPA has lowered down the dignity of country's democratic institutions. The BJP demands that the Government must quit at the earliest,” he observed.
On the issue of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi being tipped as the next Prime Minister of the country, Shah maintained that a decision of the BJP Parliamentary Board is pending in this regard. He said that Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh would score a hat-trick in the assembly polls scheduled in the State later this year.
To a question on Singh being an equal contender in the race for Prime Ministership, Shah quipped ‘anybody has the right to be a contender for the PM post in a democracy. The final decision rests with the BJP Parliamentary Board’.