Arun Jaitley claims ‘three fake campaigns’ by the Opposition were exposed in a single day

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday claimed that “three fake campaigns” by the Opposition had been “busted in a single day” on Wednesday. He was referring to the acquittal of all accused in the Samjhauta Express blasts case, the conviction by a trial court in the 2002 Godhra train fire incident, and the arrest of businessman Nirav Modi in the United Kingdom.

“I have repeatedly maintained that a fundamental difference between truth and falsehood is that truth holds together and falsehood falls apart,” Jaitley wrote in a blog post. “To each fake campaign of the ‘compulsive contrarians’ over a period of time, ultimately the truth has prevailed. Either it is the electoral mandate or the judicial process which gives the final verdict.”

Jaitley said the term “Hindu terror” was coined to give a bad name to the “otherwise liberal majority community in India” during the term of the United Progressive Alliance government. “Terror is alien to the Hindu culture,” he said. “In fact, it is alien to India’s legacy.”

“In the Samjhauta Express blast, the US State Department and the United Nations kept indicating a certain Jehadi organisation and individuals responsible for the 2007 blasts at Panipat,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader wrote. “However, it was considered by the then government as a ‘Hindu conspiracy’. Yesterday’s verdict by the court has judicially put the last nail in the coffin of the so called ‘Hindu terror theory’.”

Jaitley said that an accused arrested in the burning of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra in 2002, an incident which triggered the Gujarat riots, was convicted by a trial court on Wednesday. “The accused were arrested at different points of time, chargesheeted, their bail applications were rejected right up the Supreme Court,” he added.

However, Jaitley claimed, “compulsive contrarians who had made a career out of creating social tensions in Gujarat” alleged that the burning was “self-engineered” by the state government or kar sevaks. He claimed that former Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav appointed retired Supreme Court Justice UN Banerjee to inquire into the incident without the consent of the then-chief justice of India.

“The judge willing to oblige the government and its political interest, submitted a report that there was no burning by the mob and that the fire had taken place from inside the compartment where the Hindu pilgrims were,” Jaitley alleged. “I regard this subversion of evidence in order to cover up the heinous crime as the worst stigma on the UPA government and its Prime Minister [Manmohan Singh].”

The finance minister also claimed that Nirav Modi’s arrest had busted “the fake campaign that the present government had anything to do with him”. “His assets have been frozen, are being auctioned, criminal prosecution against him have been filed, recovery action for the dues owed to the banks and creditors are being pursued,” Jaitley said. The minister praised India’s investigative agencies for pursuing the diamond merchant.

“There is an inherent danger in relying only on fake issues,” Jaitley said. “They crack up and collapse as three of them did yesterday. I hope the manufacturers of fake campaign learn some lesson.”