DEHRADUN: BJP today claimed that Congress government in Uttarakhand had shied away from lodging an FIR in the sting CD case against the party, despite threatening to do so as it was on a "sticky wicket".
"We were ready to fill the jails but Congress chose to do away with the FIR it had threatened to file against us. The ruling party only submitted a complaint letter to the police in the sting CD episode," Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Ajay Bhatt said in a statement here.
"Congress knows that it stands on a sticky wicket and being aggressive would have recoiled on it," he said.
Pradesh Congress President Kishore Upadhyay had threatened to file an FIR against the BJP on August 27 accusing the Opposition of masterminding the sting CD episode as part of a conspiracy to malign the image of the state government.
However, party sources said the threat of an FIR did not go down well with the Chief Minister who intervened and asked the PCC chief no to go ahead with his plans.
Subsequently, backing out of the earlier threat, a party delegation yesterday met Dehradun SSP Pushpak Jyoti and handed a complaint letter to him.
Terming the sting CD as "false" and the entire operation as a move carried out with ulterior motives to bring disrepute to the state government, the Congress delegation asked the SSP to take action against BJP president Amit Shah, vice president Shyam Jaju, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Pradesh BJP president Tirath Singh Rawat and journalist Ashok Pandey allegedly involved in the making of the sting CD.
The CD purportedly shows CM Harish Rawat's former Secretary and IAS officer Mohammad Shahid negotiating a bribery deal with a mediator for liquor licences.