Opposition leaders write PM alleging misue of probe agencies

New Delhi: Amid the arrest and custody of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, eight opposition parties write Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing the Centre of misusing probe agencies, NDTV reported.

However, the Congress party did not join the feat. The letter was signed by Chief Ministers of non-BJP states, including Telangana's KCR, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, Bhagwant Mann in Punjab, Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi etc.

Other leaders who signed the letter include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Sena's Uddav Thackeray, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.

When Congress stayed out of such a joint venture, Rahul Gandhi, as well as former party president Sonia Gandhi was being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate should be noted. The case over them is the alleged money laundering by the company that owned the National Herald newspaper.

The letter read, "We hope you would agree that India is still a democratic country. The blatant misuse of central agencies against the members of the opposition appears to suggest that we have transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy," NDTV quoted.

The letter alleged that Sisodia was arrested after a long "witch-hunt" by the CBI and without any evidence. It said that after 2014, most of the politicians booked, arrested, raided or interrogated by probe agencies are from the opposition.

It said that Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Assam CM, was under the scanner of CBI and ED in 2014-15, but it changed after he joined BJP. The case against him was the Saradha chit-fund scam. The same was with former Trinamool Congress leaders Suvendu Adhikari and Mukul Roy. Both were under ED/CBI scanner, but after joining BJP, they were left alone.

"Since 2014, there has been a marked rise in the number of raids conducted, cases lodged against and arrest of the opposition leaders. Be it Lalu Prasad Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena), Azam Khan (Samajwadi Party), Nawab Malik, Anil Deshmukh (NCP), Abhishek Banerjee (TMC), central agencies have often sparked suspicion that they were working as extended wings of the ruling dispensation at the Centre, the letter read.