In the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement that “the government will do all that is necessary to establish the need for the CBI and its legitimacy, and protect its past and future work,” the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said such claims sound hollow as the agency “is being used as a private militia by the Congress government against the Opposition or to arm twist the Opposition.”
BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi accused the Congress of subverting democratic processes and institutions and said even though the party spoke of CBI autonomy there had been no action on consulting the papers on the issue.
She said not only had CBI not been allowed to investigate policy issues, even the Joint Parliamentary Committee was not permitted by the government to investigates such matters. “So the Prime Minister’s Office and the government offices have been speaking in different tone and tenor.”
Another spokesperson, Nirmala Sitharaman, said: “The autonomy of the CBI is definitely a question, which the government has to, in the context of the Gauhati High Court's ruling, look into seriously, and work out ways for establishing the autonomy of the CBI.”
