Ahead of monsoon session storm, Vasundhara Raje gets BJP umbrella

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Shah’s meetings came against the backdrop of the persistent Congress demand for the ouster of the two CMs. Party sources said BJP leaders — including union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, national secretary Shrikant Sharma, and spokespersons M J Akbar and Sambit Patra — discussed the party’s “line of defence” against the expected opposition attack in the Parliament session that begins on July 21.

Later, Shah, along with Jaitley and senior ministers Rajnath Singh and M Venkaiah Naidu, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fine-tune the party’s strategy.

“The BJP will be aggressively countering the false allegations against its popular leaders. We will expose the Congress party. Party will be adopting an aggressive stance against the baseless and false campaign against its leaders,” Shrikant Sharma said.

BJP sources said Raje had presented her version of her dealings with Lalit Modi, who is facing a probe by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged financial malpractices during IPL 2009. Raje is believed to have argued that she had nothing to hide — and had there indeed been any irregularities, the previous Congress government in the state would have initiated a probe against her.

“BJP has taken a stand that it’s a political battle, the allegations are political and they have to be countered politically. The party leadership has decided to stand by its leaders,” a senior BJP leader said.

The BJP intends to ask the Congress how it could use Lalit Modi’s tweets to target Raje while at the same time rejecting his tweets about the Gandhi family. “The Congress attacks our chief minister on the basis of what Lalit Modi tweeted. But why is it ignoring his tweets on Priyanka Vadra and Sonia Gandhi’s sister?” Sharma asked.

On Vyapam, which a section of BJP leaders views as a more serious allegation than those leveled against Raje, the party will maintain that the Opposition demand for a CBI probe had been met. A BJP leader said the party will also point out that even the judiciary had earlier refused to entertain Congress leader Digvijaya Singh’s attempts to drag Chouhan into the case.

The Congress has threatened to disrupt the session unless Sushma Swaraj, who has been accused of helping Lalit Modi, and Smriti Irani, who faces allegations of malpractice in connection with an educational certificate, resign. The opposition will also press for the resignations of Chouhan, Raje and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, whose name figured in an alleged rice scam.

“BJP leadership will not consider resignation of any of its leaders because it will be suicidal for the party before the crucial Bihar elections. The party does not want to give any issue on a platter to the opposition which they can use to damage the BJP’s image,” a senior leader said.

The BJP, on its part, is likely to train its guns on Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh of Congress, who is embroiled in a disproportionate assets case.

[With PTI inputs]