The questioning of Congress President Sitaram Kesari by CBI officers on Sunday became a potent political issue yesterday, as the Congress called it politically motivated and signalled that its ties with the United Front government had been further strained.
The AICC spokesperson said the party would not withdraw its support to the UF over this issue since it was a seasoned and mature party.
But he indicated that the party treated it as a political assault. About Kesari, he said: We are not worried because our slate is clean, our conscience is clear. His life is an open book.
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Kesari was questioned in connection with a report that the Supreme Court had sought from the CBI on Monday regarding a public interest litigation, alleging that Kesari had assets disproportionate to his income. The CBI reported to the court yesterday that it had found nothing incriminating so far but that it would continue to investigate.
The CBI team processing the Kesaris case wants to close it for lack of evidence, but are under pressure from the government to keep at it, say sources.
They add that there is also a bid to connect Kesaris CBI case with that of a muder of a man and later his wife in Delhi, despite the views of the Attorney General of India to the contrary.
The CBI was asked to probe whether there was any truth in information that the woman was known to Kesri when her husband dissappeared in mysterious circumstances. Later his body was found in parts. After some time, his wife was also murdered.
A government official said that the Intelligence Bureau has also looked into this and has found no connection between the murders and Kesari.
A report in The Hindu yesterday reported the pressure on the CBI from the prime ministers office to find something incriminating against Kesari.
Answering a question on the report, the AICC spokesperson said that maybe PMO sees a threat to the United Front government since Kesari had in the last few weeks started the process of uniting, strengthening, revitalising and rejuvenating the Congress. Therefore, clearly, the investigation is politically motivated.
He added that, if what has appeared in newspapers about the role of the PMO is correct, then to say the least it is deplorable.
He would not answer questions about whether the party thought other recent CBI investigations involving politicians, specially ones against former party president PV Narasimha Rao, were also politically motivated.
When a reporter asked him why he chose to believe the The Hindu report when he routinely told the press he could not comment on other newspaper reports until he had verified them, the spokesperson asserted his right to choose which newspaper reports to believe.
The spokesperson referred to Kesaris presenting a statement of his assets to the Congress Working Committee in early November. Nobody at that meeting had looked into the documents and Kesari had refused to present those documents to the press.
At least one section of the government sees the report and the Congress reaction as a tactic to keep the Gowda government under pressure and to separate the Congress from any association with the United Front in the public mind in preparation for mid-term polls, whenever those occur.
These government functionaries, as well as senior Congress leaders, rule out the possibility of the Congress being able to muster the courage to withdraw support for some months at least, for fear of elections.
It seems that Gowda would like to turn the investigations into a Damocles sword over Kesari, who has been widely reported to want to take Gowdas place sooner than later. But the focus of the report and the AICCs response to it could have turned the tables on Gowda.