Truth always prevails, Modi haters got befitting reply: BJP MP on SC ruling in 2002 riots case

Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court verdict that upheld the Special Investigation Teams SIT clean chit to Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case, who was then the chief minister of the western state, and said that his haters have received a befitting reply.Addressing a press conference here, the MP from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency claimed that the verdict must have proved to be a major setback for the opposition parties.The truth always prevails.

Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court verdict that upheld the Special Investigation Team's (SIT) clean chit to Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case, who was then the chief minister of the western state, and said that his haters have received a “befitting reply”.

Addressing a press conference here, the MP from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency claimed that the verdict must have proved to be a major ''setback'' for the opposition parties.

''The truth always prevails. Opposition parties—Congress and Left-- will now have to close their shops of hatred, which they were running against Modi for the last 20 years. There is a cottage industry of Modi haters who have got a befitting reply from the Supreme Court,'' he said. Prasad claimed that the Congress had tried its best to ''defame'' Modi, now the prime minister, but the court ''clearly said that the plea filed against the SIT's clean chit was devoid of merit”.

''The SIT had investigated the matter and gave a clean chit to Modi in 2002 riots case. Several agencies investigated the case, all during the UPA regime. The Congress tried its level best to defame Modi ji, but the court dismissed the plea by Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri,'' he pointed out. Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed in Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, a day after a coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra, killing 59 people and triggering riots in Gujarat. Zakia had filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2018.

“How can we (party workers) forget the fact that the then Chief Minister of Gujarat was grilled for nine hours by the SIT in connection with 2002 Gujarat riots. No BJP worker ever protested against it. “Today when Rahul Gandhi is being questioned by a central agency in connection with a case of corruption, Congress leaders are staging demonstrations in the national capital and other parts of the country,” said Prasad.

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the SIT clean chit to Modi and 63 others in the 2002 riots case, dismissing a plea by Jafri against the closure report filed by the SIT in 2012.