Modi endured false claims: Shah
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi “silently endured” the pain of false allegations for 19 years without speaking a word, like “Lord Shiva who swallowed poison and held it in his throat”, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union home minister Amit Shah said on Saturday, a day after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal challenging the clean chit to Modi and others in the 2002 Gujarat riots case.
Shah also sought an apology from people who levelled “politically motivated” allegations against the then Gujarat chief minister following the riots, saying that the truth had come out, “shining like gold.”
“Only a strong-willed person could have taken a stand to not say anything till the judicial process reaches its finality. Our tall leader (Modi) endured the pain of these politically motivated false allegations for 19 long years without saying a word. I saw him suffering through this very closely,” Shah, Modi’s trusted deputy for years, said in an interview with the news agency ANI.
The home minister said the Gujarat government had done everything in its power to control the riots in 2002.
He accused opposition parties, ideologically motivated journalists and some NGOs for spreading false allegations against Modi, saying that this “trikut” or trio created an ecosystem where they “started believing the lies to be true”.
“But, the public sees everything. We have never lost an election in Gujarat. The mandate tells us the public didn’t believe in these lies,” he said.
Hailing the Supreme Court order, Shah demanded an apology from “motivated persons”, who he said targeted Modi for years, naming activist Teesta Setalvad as one of the persons.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the clean chit given by a special investigation team (SIT) to 64 people, including Modi, in the Gujarat riots case. The court dismissed a plea by late Concontinued