Amid apprehensions that the Congress and the UPA leadership are not keen to defend Law Minister Salman Khurshid, senior Ministers and party top brass swung into action on Monday and maintained that he had done no wrong.
Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption, meanwhile, suspended its agitation against Khurshid in New Delhi and decided to hold more protests in Farrukhabad, Khurshid’s constituency.
On Monday, Khurshid, found support from Ministers Ambika Soni, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Beni Prasad Verma. Congress spokesperson Sandip Dikshit also defended Khurshid, while the AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh said people like Kejriwal want the investigation to go their way.
Khurshid is a key person for the Congress, which is trying to revive its fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, where the party faced a rout in the recent Assembly elections. Though the party was not ready for a “point-by-point” clarification on the allegations against Khurshid, it welcomed the Minister’s decision to sue the channel that aired the ‘expose’ on the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust.
Kejriwal doubts
Meanwhile, Kejriwal alleged there was a quid-pro-quo between Congress and the Samajwadi Party.
He said the SP Government would protect Khurshid to ensure that the Centre did not take a strong stand against Mulayam Singh Yadav, against whom a case of disproportionate assets is pending in the Supreme Court.
IAC produced some differently-abled people from Uttar Pradesh, who reportedly received aid from Khurshid’s NGO, and said they had not receive a pie and wondered how their names found place in the affidavits produced by the Trust.
NDA convenor Sharad Yadav attacked Kejriwal for casting aspersions on the UP Government and said people like Kejriwal do not believe in probe by Government agencies.
PIL filed
In Lucknow, a public interest litigation was filed in the registry of Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court seeking filing of an FIR in the wake of allegations of misappropriation of funds by a trust run by Khurshid and his wife.
The PIL, filed by RTI activist Nutan Thakur through her counsel Ashok Pandey, also sought monitoring of the case by the court.