- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
POLICE in the western Indian state of Gujarat has opposed the bail application of activist Teesta Setalvad, who is also a major critic of prime minister Narendra Modi, claiming that she was part of a “larger conspiracy” plotted by later Indian National Congress leader Ahmad Patel against Modi, a former chief minister of the state who was in office between 2001 and 2014 when he became the prime minister.
Setalvad is one of two persons arrested by crime branch officials in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, recently on grounds of conspiring to falsely implicate people in connection with the 2002 riots.
The Gujarat Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating allegations of fabrication of evidence and conspiracy linked to the 2002 riots against Setalvad and former Indian Police Service officers RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt said in an affidavit that the accused were allegedly part of the “larger conspiracy” for “dismissal or destabilisation” by “hook or crook” of the then Modi-led government in the state.
It also said that it was done allegedly at the “behest” of Patel, who was a key aide to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and one of the prominent politicians from Gujarat.
A war of words erupted between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress soon after.
The BJP, which is in power in Gujarat for more than two decades now and will be tested in yet another state election later this year, lashed out at the opposition party saying the affidavit exposed the truth and alleged that it was none other than Sonia Gandhi who had orchestrated the “conspiracy” to topple its government in Gujarat and that Patel was a mere “puppet” in her plot.
Patel passed away in November 2020.
“Ahmed Patel is just a name, the driving force was his boss Sonia Gandhi. Through her chief political advisor Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi attempted to malign Gujarat’s image. Through him, she attempted to defame the chief minister Narendra Modi. She was architect of this entire conspiracy,” BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said at a press conference on Saturday (16).
The Congress, on the other hand, hit back at the SIT’s affidavit saying “the Prime Minister’s political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries. This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a ‘clean chit’ to the chief minister.”
Setalvad has been arrested, along with Sreekumar and Bhatt, for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in the riots case.
“The political objective of the applicant (Setalvad) while enacting this larger conspiracy was dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government… She obtained illegal financial and other benefits and rewards from rival political party in lieu of her attempts to wrongly implicate innocent persons in Gujarat,” the SIT’s affidavit said.
