BJP leader Anurag Thakur to raise Ishrat Jahan encounter case in Parliament

New Delhi: In a bid to corner the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur will raise the Ishrat Jahan encounter case in the upcoming Parliament session.

BJP MP Kirit Somayya today gave a notice to discuss the same in the Lok Sabha today.

The BJP has alleged that the Congress had connived to get a political rival, then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, eliminated in Gujarat.

Citing a media report which claimed that Chidambaram had in fact signed the first affidavit, which declared Ishrat and three others as terrorists, but gave all four a clean chit a month later as serious amendments were made in the second affidavit also signed by him, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said Congress, especially Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, should take responsibility because Chidambaram did so as the party found it not strong enough to fight Modi politically.

"You underplayed a terror plot that could eliminate (Modi). You are clearly admitting that you cannot fight this politically. So eliminate or allow to eliminate or encourage elimination of the leader who you are mortified of fighting politically,” she said.

Reacting to BJP's charges, the Congress on Wednesday said party president Sonia Gandhi and her deputy Rahul Gandhi had never intervened in any administrative matter including the 'Ishrat Jahan case' during the party-led UPA government, and clarified that it did not seek to distance itself from former home minister P Chidambaram in the case.

The first affidavit in the encounter case stated that Ishrat was a LeT operative, who was part of a plot to assassinate the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Chidambaram had initially claimed that the first affidavit declaring Ishrat and three others as terrorists was filed in the court without his approval, adding that he had made some editorial changes to avoid misinterpretation when the matter was brought to his notice.

Chidambaram, however, completely altered his stance in the second affidavit, saying that intelligence inputs on Ishrat and the three others did not constitute conclusive proof and favoured a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the encounter.