Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday came out in support of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, saying he will come out of the DDCA corruption charges with “flying colours”.
“Jaitley will come out with flying
colours in the same manner as (BJP leader) L.K. Advani did in the hawala
case,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu quoted Modi as
telling a BJP parliamentary party meeting.
“The Congress is raking up manufactured allegations to defame the (BJP-led) government,” Modi added.
The prime minister’s comments came a day
after Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah described Jaitley as a
man of honesty, after the finance minister filed a defamation suit
against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The prime minister said the Congress did
the same with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chief
Ministers Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan as well as Shivraj Chouhan of
Madhya Pradesh.
BJP MP Kirti Azad, who was the first to
level the corruption charges against Jaitley in the running of the Delhi
and District Cricket Association (DDCA), did not attend the meeting.
Azad told reporters he had “prior engagement” and clarified that he had not boycotted the meeting.
Jaitley has denied the corruption
charges levelled against him by Azad as well as the Congress and the Aam
Aadmi Party. Jaitley headed the DDCA for 13 years till 2013.
Sushma Swaraj and Raje were targetted by
the opposition over their alleged links with former IPL chairman Lalit
Modi. Chauhan was blamed for what came to be known as the Vyapam scam.
Source : IndianMediaBook - Press Briefing
