CBI has become GBI under PM Modi: Trinamool Congress

NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress today batted for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the Lok Sabha and hit out at the government over the CBI raids on his principal secretary's office alleging that the agency had become Gujarat Bureau of Investigation (GBI) under the Modi government.

TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the raids had "perturbed" them and rejected the government's claim that CBI was an "independent body", claiming that the agency could not have acted without the Prime Minister's knowledge.

The government dismissed his charge with Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu saying that Parliament should be used to "strengthen" the fight against corruption and not to "obstruct" it.

Insisting that the Delhi CM has not been raided, he said, "No wrong has been done. Law is taking its own course. It is not the duty of Parliament to take up such matter." CBI should be free and need not take any permission, he added.

Training his guns on the PM, Bandyopadhyay said senior Gujarat cadre officers had been deputed in CBI and one of them "shared" his name with Modi and the agency had turned into "GBI".

He also spoke about Kejriwal's claim that the CBI officials were looking for "cricket-oriented" files relating to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and demanded setting up of a joint parliamentary committee to go into various aspect of the agency's functioning.

Dismissing the contention that Kejriwal should have been informed, Naidu said it would not be in accordance with law and read out an earlier Aam Aadmi Party's statement welcoming a Supreme Court order which had struck down a provision of a probe agency intimating the government concerned while acting against an officer of joint secretary rank and above.

Taking a dig at the AAP leader, he said he disapproved his remarks against the Prime Minister in which he had called him a "coward and psychopath".

"Can any Chief Minister make such a loose comment? He is a youngster, a new comer," Naidu said.

TMC members later staged a walkout after party member Ratna Dey again sought to raise the issue and was disallowed.