BJP has lost its high moral ground: Yashwant Sinha on Jay Shah row

Veteran BJP leader and former finance minister, Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday said that the defence of Jay Shah, son BJP President Amit Shah, by the saffron party was indicative of lapses on several fronts.

The former finance minister, who has turned a strong critic of the Modi government's economic policies, also objected to the filing of a Rs 100 crore defamation suit against the News Website, which carried a story on Jay Shah's business.

Such an attempt to suppress the voice of the media was avoidable, he told reporters here.

"I will certainly like to say that the manner in which a central minister jumped into fray in defence of Jay Shah was not called for. He is a central minister not a chartered accountant of Jay Shah," Sinha said, in an apparent reference to Union minister Piyush Goyal's defence of Amit Shah's son.

He also expressed his reservations over the "very special circumstances" under which Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was cleared to fight Jay Shah's defamation case against The Wire.

"Perhaps, the high moral ground we have acquired all these months and years appears to have been lost," Sinha said.

He, however, insisted that he did not want to comment on the merit of the story, which said that there was a huge rise in the turnover of Jay Shah's company after the BJP came to power in 2014.

It is a matter of inquiry and investigation, and any government agency can do it, Sinha said.

PTI