BJP hits out at nine Opposition leaders

BJP on Thursday held press conferences in several states in response to a letter written by eight parties to the prime minister on March 5 alleging misuse of central investigating agencies against opposition leaders. The letter was written after the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested AAP leader Manish Sisodia in the Delhi excise policy case.

The letter was signed by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Bihar deputy CM and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, J&K National Conference's Farooq Abdullah, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

"The leaders of all these parties who are signatory to the letter are facing corruption allegations and investigation has been going on for a long. They are trying to form a group to put pressure on probe agencies to derail that investigation," BJP chief spokesman Anil Baluni told ET, adding: "BJP will expose them before people and this cry of vendetta politics is just to divert attention from their corruption."


In Delhi, former BJP president Manoj Tiwari alleged that after Sisodia's arrest, there's "panic among the corrupt" and those who once used to speak against corruption were now "embracing the corrupt".

Baluni said in some states, press conferences will be done on Friday. In Maharashtra, the interaction was postponed for a day as deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis presented the state budget.

"People of Telangana have decided that BRS will not win the next elections... have decided that this Nizam Raj and dictatorship must end," Union minister G Kishan Reddy told media persons while responding to BRS leader Kavitha's charges. "We have no problem with the BRS protest. ED has summoned Telangana CM's daughter Kavitha in the Delhi liquor case. Several other people have been arrested. People of Telangana didn't tell her to do corruption in Delhi."