Mumbai: The Shiv Sena backed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is currently being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the National Herald issue, and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intends to erase the memories of late Congress leaders Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and destroy the Nehru-Gandhi lineage.
Likening the Modi government to the Hitler regime, an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana on Thursday claimed that the government has just stopped short of building gas chambers to eliminate opponents.
The editorial said that the probe into the National Herald case was vendetta politics. “Rahul Gandhi is being questioned to show that no matter how big an opponent you are, he can grab you by the collar,” the editorial said. It further added that Rahul Gandhi didn’t have a First Information Report (FIR) against him and did not commit any scheduled offence in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“The BJP not only wants to erase the memories of Pandit Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, but it also wants to destroy the Nehru-Gandhi lineage,” the editorial said.
As senior Sena leaders, including transport minister Anil Parab, are also facing a probe by the ED, the party said that there was no such thing as equality of law. It added that besides Sena, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Samajwadi Party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, and Trinamool Congress (TMC) were under the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) scanner, but BJP politicians were never questioned.
“Today, the battles have reached the level of destroying families. They want to show that they can target Rahul Gandhi. A new democracy has come where all opposition voices must be silenced. Today it is Rahul Gandhi, then Sonia Gandhi…who next? Now, the only thing left for them is to build poisonous gas chambers like Hitler and kill opponents,” the editorial remarked.
Gandhi appeared thrice before the ED since Monday for questioning in the National Herald money laundering case. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has claimed there was no FIR or scheduled offence in this case, on the basis of which a case under the PMLA was filed and Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, were summoned.
A Maharashtra BJP spokesperson said that as a policy, the party does not respond to criticisms in Saamana.