by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Its Quirk Of Fate, Past returns to Haunt Chidambaram
PC had put Shah behind bars in 2010
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Aug 21
It seems the past has returned to haunt former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and life has come full circle for him.
He may have been smiling on July 25, 2010 when Amit Shah was arrested by the CBI in Gandhinagar in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in Gandhinagar. Shah who was a Minister of State for Home under the Narendra Modi government in Gujrat, was desperately wanted by the CBI. But he chose to elude the agency for four days then and the same media haunted him. Finally, Amit Shah decided to surrender after resigning from the Modi government following a charge sheet being filed against him. He was produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate A Y Dave. Surprisingly, the CBI did not press for custody of Shah, who has been charged with murder, extortion, kidnapping and five other sections under IPC for the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi in 2005. He was remanded by the magistrate in judicial custody for 13 days till August 7 and taken to Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad.
"I have full faith in the judiciary and I am sure the allegations against me will be cleared by the courts," Shah had said immediately prior to his arrest. Shah had also claimed that he was innocent and said that charges against him were "fabricated, politically motivated and were on the instruction of Congress government" and demanded that his entire questioning by the CBI should be video-graphed.
But none of his pleas were heard as the UPA regime in North Block under P Chidambaram was determined to send him to jail and went after Modi then.
As the luck would have it, Shah kept getting one relief after the other from the courts .
Now the life has come full circle. Today, Amit Shah is occupying the same seat in North Block's Home Minister's office which was once held by Chidambaram.
Today, Chidambaram is eluding arrest from the enforcement agencies and knocking at the doors of the courts for one relief or the other.
It nothing but a quirk of fate that nine years later personalities are same but roles have been reversed. Today Chidambaram is facing the music and Shah must be smiling. Interestingly, none of the cases in which Chidambaram is wanted, relate to Shah's ministry.
