Amit Shah vs PC: Interesting case study
How the tables have turned in a decade. Comparisons are being made between the arrest of senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram and the arrest of the then Gujarat minister and now the Union home minister and also the BJP national president Amit Shah in 2010. Social media has been buzzing with tags like “kalchakra (the wheel of time),” “tale of two leaders” and “life goes full circle,” comparing the arrest of two leaders. Some twitter handles are also quoting Mr
BACK IN 2010, when Mr Chidambaram was the Union home minister in Congress led UPA- II government, Mr Shah was arrested in the alleged Sohrabuddin fake encounter case by the CBI. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Gujarat chief minister. Now, in a role reversal, Mr Chidambaram has been arrested by the CBI in the INX Media corruption case and Mr Shah is holding the home portfolio in Mr Modi led government.
Shah’s remarks in Gujarati when the Supreme Court permitted him to return to Gujarat in 2012 - “Mera paani utarte dekh kinare par ghar mat bana lena mein samundar hoon, laut kar jarur aaoonga(thinking the tide has ebbed, don’t you dare build your castles on the coast, for I am the sea, and I always come back).”
Barred from entering Gujarat for two years, when Mr Shah returned to his home state after the apex court’s order, he had recited the Gujarati ‘sher’ - “Mera paani utarte dekh kinare par ghar mat bana lena mein samundar hoon, laut kar jarur aaoonga(thinking the tide has ebbed, don’t you dare build your castles on the coast, for I am the sea, and I always come back)
Before his arrest, Mr Shah, the then home minister, had addressed a press conference where he had claimed the case against him by the CBI as “fabricated, politically motivated and done under the behest of the Congress government.” He had claimed that instead of Sohrabuddin encounter, the action was an attempt to “encounter” the Gujarat
government and the BJP. Mr Shah had spent over three months in the Sabarmati Central jail in Ahmedabad.
After Mr Chidambaram’s arrest, the Congress had accused the Modi government of using the CBI and ED as a personal “revengeseeking departments,” which the BJP has denied.