Case filed by Subramanian Swamy purely political: Congress

NEW DELHI: Congress today dismissed government's claim that the party was fighting the judiciary over the National Herald case insisting that the case filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy as purely "political".

"If Ghulam Nabi Azad or I had brought forward a case against Modi ji, would you or would you not call it political?" party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters.

He said that BJP is saying that Congress is opposing judiciary, but it fails to realise judiciary and people are too wise to fall to their "cheap gimmicks".

"At the end of the day, Swamy is nothing but a proxy... No one believes in the theory of 'good cop, bad cop'. Misadventure is the name of the game for the past 18 months," he remarked.

Singhi, who has been the senior advocate for Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in the case, said that the court order in the matter was "unsustainable and erroneous".

He, however, said that this does not mean that the party was casting any aspersions on judiciary.

Asked as to why the Congress was raising the issue in Parliament when the case has to be fought in the courts, he said, "Our fight is legal and political. It is a fight on three fronts. The magistrate, the apex court, and the political front."

He was asked about Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu's charge that Congress was using Parliament to threaten judiciary by disruptions.

Naidu accused the Congress of using Parliament to "intimidate and silence" the judiciary after the Gandhis were not given relief by court in the Herald case.

He also alleged that the party was practising "mobocracy" which was posing a "danger to democracy" by making Parliament "dysfunctional".