Former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on Tuesday charged the BJP with having falsely implicated him in a couple of "politically motivated" criminal cases lodged in Bihar last week.
Addressing a press conference here, Kumar alleged that the BJP has been annoyed over his opposition to its brand of politics since his JNU days and using its political clout to get even with him.
"The FIR lodged against me by doctors at AIIMS, Patna was a handiwork of the BJP. I do not wish to blame the medical professionals They are working under tremendous pressure and some of them may have capitulated before the vindictive political leadership as a short cut to success", Kumar said.
"In the FIR it has been alleged that my supporters and I had indulged in violence when we visited AIIMS, Patna to meet an associate admitted there. CCTV cameras are installed inside the hospital and till date no footage has been found which could corroborate the allegation", Kumar - who is now a member of the CPI's national council - said.
"Within hours of the lodging of the FIR, our cavalcade was attacked in Begusarai. The attackers were workers of Bajrang Dal and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. I may be sued if I am wrong. An FIR was subsequently lodged by us following which a counter FIR was registered wherein we were accused of indulging in violence", Kumar said.
"I am amused that Bihar health minister Mangal Pandey, who has been blissfully indifferent to the pathetic condition of health care services on his watch, lost no time in maligning me after the AIIMS, Patna FIR", he remarked.
Replying to a query, he said "I am thankful to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the generosity he had extended towards me while I was lodged in a sedition case on the basis of a morphed video of JNU campus. But if the state's health services are crumbling under his rule, we have to stand up for the truth".
"My sense of gratitude had not come in the way of my raising voice against sexual abuse of girls at Muzaffarpur shelter home. Moreover, Nitish Kumar's helplessness can be gauged from the fact that while one minister belonging to his party had to resign in connection with the scandal, demand for the resignation of a BJP minister in the same case is yet to be fulfilled", he said.
"Democracy is under threat in the BJP regime. The party had let loose ruffians masquerading as lawyers who assaulted me inside a Delhi court premises. Probe agencies are being used to settle scores with rivals even as real wrongdoers are roaming scot free.
Those who are raising a voice, be it from the media or the political class, are being silenced", the CPI leader alleged.
"It is in such a backdrop that our party has decided to hold a rally on October 25 to which all political groups outside the NDA have been invited", he said.
Asked about his own possibility of contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Begusarai, as reported in the media, Kumar said "no formal decision has been taken in this regard.
But any decision must have the consent of not only the Left Front but also other parties with whom we may have an electoral understanding".