Advani elated with Modi “clean chit” by SIT

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) patriarch L K Advani has slammed all those who “demonised” Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the 2002 anti-Muslim riots and said the news about a Special Investigation Team (SIT) finding no evidence against Modi was most heartening he had got in long time.

In his latest blog, Advani said: “The most heartening news I have read in a long, long time is the front page report in the Times of India on December 3, 2010 bearing caption ‘S.I.T. CLEARS MODI OF WILFULLY ALLOWING POST-GODHRA RIOTS – Finds No Substantial Evidence'”

He went on to write: “In my sixty years of political life I have not known any colleague of mine so consistently, so sustainedly and so viciously maligned by opponents as Narendra Modi.

“Ironically, during the same period as this calumny campaign against Modi has been at its peak, the Gujarat C.M. has been a recipient of fulsome compliments and kudos from within the country as well as abroad for making Gujarat?s a leading government in so far as the state?s all-round development is concerned, and a kind of a role model for the country in so far as good and honest governance is concerned.

He said those who have been part of the demonising campaign against Modi have based their attack on one allegation.

“After the brutal attack at Godhra on a train returning from Ayodhya in which 58 kar sewaks were burned to death, riots broke out in some parts of Gujarat, and that Modi deliberately allowed the rioters to run rampage.”

“On April 27, 2009 the Supreme Court received a petition filed by Ms. Zakia Jafri seeking an FIR against Modi. The court appointed a Special Investigation Team headed by former CBI Director R.K.Raghavan to investigate Jafri?s complaint.

“The Raghavan team investigated the allegations for nearly twenty months. In the course of their investigations the SIT interrogated Narendra Modi personally, and early last week submitted its report to the apex court.

“The Times of India and several other papers have reported that the SIT has found no evidence to substantiate the charge and has exonerated the Gujarat Chief Minister. The country is eagerly awaiting the full text of the SIT report to the Supreme Court,” he wrote.

Advani also lavished praise on the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the election miracle.

He said while no one was surprised that the JD(U)- BJP alliance led by Nitish Kumar won hands down in the Bihar Assembly elections, what left all wondering was that the group secured 216 out of 243 seats, which meant 8/9th of the Assembly?s total strength.

He said the real reason for the extraordinary victory won by us – with JD(U) winning 115 out of 141 seats it contested, and BJP winning 91 out of 102 seats it contested – was the preceding fifteen years of jungle raj.

“During the poll campaign Congress speakers kept blaming Laloo and RJD for these 15 years, but the fact is that for a substantial part of this period, Congress was part of the RJD Government. It was the contrast actually experienced by the people between the RJD -Congress tenure and JD(U) -BJP tenure which conferred on the NDA such a wonderful landslide,” Advani wrote.