'Sheer vendetta' : Congress condemns arrest of Gujarat Samachar MD Bahubali Shah

New Delhi: Congress has condemned the arrest of the Gujarat Samachar Managing Director, Bahubali Shah, by the Enforcement Directorate at the `behest' of the Bharatiya Janata Party government.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC, party leaders Jignesh Mevani, a legislator from Gujarat, and Lalji Desai, chief organiser of the Congress Seva Dal, stated that Shah was arrested because the Gujarat Samachar asked some uncomfortable questions to the government.

They disclosed that it was out of sheer vendetta that an over two-decade-old case of money laundering was reopened against the owners of the Gujarat Samachar, as it had asked serious questions about the Pahalgam terror attack.

Mevani and Desai revealed that the Gujarat Samachar had consistently been asking the government as to why the terrorists responsible for the Pahalgam terror attack have not been apprehended, and for this, its owners were hounded.

They observed that the government’s priority is not to arrest the terrorists responsible for the terror attack, but to arrest the Gujarat Samachar owners who had been standing up to the RSS, the BJP, Modi, and Amit Shah and asking them questions.

Pointing out that the BJP does not tolerate any criticism or questions by the media, Mevani disclosed that the Gujarat Samachar had even written against the Congress party, but the party never resorted to such vindictive actions.

They said, not only was the Gujarat Samachar questioning the government on Pahalgam, it had also raised questions about providing special favours to business houses and criticised the capitalist greed that is touted as the Gujarat Model. They remarked that in fact, it is the ‘Modani Model’- a model of exploitation by Modi, Adani and Ambani.

“Instead of arresting the terrorists, they are arresting journalists, and instead of finishing terrorism, they are trying to finish journalism”, Desai remarked.