New Delhi, March 21: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday accused the Congress-led UPA of misusing the CBI to threaten its allies into forcibly supporting it.
"This is a signal to all friendly parties that what happened in Chennai (raid on M.K. Stalin's residence) can happen to you as well. The Congress is known for misusing the CBI, which is the Congress Bureau of Investigation," senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu told IANS outside parliament.
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said the "government was surviving in power using the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate as crutches".
"It is a proven fact that the government (UPA), to stay in power, has been using the CBI to continue their strength in the government," BJP's Rajiv Pratap Rudy told news channel Times Now.
"When the alliance partners are leaving them, they are using their authority against them. It is a sharp message to the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party that if you leave the Congress party, you will meet the same fate. So, it a veiled threat," he added.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Thursday carried out a search at the residence of M.K. Stalin, son of DMK chief M.K. Karunanidhi, in Chennai.
The search comes two days after the DMK announced its decision to pull out of the central government and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), dissatisfied with the centre's stand on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), whose support to the UPA government has become crucial after the DMK's exit from the coalition, has been playing hard with the government and seeking Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma's resignation after he publicly rebuked SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
"Strongly disapproving" the CBI's search at the residence of Stalin, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has said that the move was bound to be "misunderstood."
