BENGALURU: After former finance minister P Chidambaram, the Congress fears that another strong leader from its ranks, DK Shivakumar may face a similar fate. After the Karnataka High Court quashed his petition against Enforcement Directorate summons on Thursday, the usually vocal Shivakumar chose to tread cautiously, refusing to comment either on the order or central agencies.
However, the state unit of the Congress took up his case, going all out to accuse the central agencies of becoming weapons of harrassment in the control of the BJP. The ED as well as the Income Tax departments came under fire from Congress leaders.
While not commenting on the High Court’s orders directly, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) said, “The entire country knows BJP’s modus operandi and how they witchhunt opposition leaders. Using central agencies to harass, trouble and blackmail leaders, forcing them to join hands with BJP else face consequences is the saffron party’s amnesty scheme.”
“They have been targeting Shivakumar for years now but he will tackle it legally,” said Gundu Rao, staunchly defending his party colleague. Despite their personal differences with the Vokkaliga strongman, many leaders of the Congress backed Shivakumar. The former minister himself, however, chose to keep mum over what could be the outcome of the Court’s ruling.
“I will not comment on the court’s decision. My plea was that the case pertains to Income Tax and not the Enforcement Directorate. I will look for other legal measures. I will not talk about whether agencies are biased or comment on their conduct,” the former Minister said. Shivakumar is expected to take his appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday while his followers hope that he would not meet a similar fate as Chidambaram.