Jaitley calls Mamata's dharna a drama to be Oppn's PM face

New Delhi, Feb 05: Union minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday slammed West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her "disproportionate" response to CBI's action against Kolkata's police commissioner and claimed it was a strategy to defocus from other opposition aspirants for the highest office and to project herself as the nucleus of India's opposition.

Calling the opposition a "Kleptocrat's Club", he said in a scathing blog post that all those in Opposition who aspire to be in power are today being investigated, prosecuted and in some cases have also been convicted for crimes of corruption.

Jaitley in a blog post asked, "Can a state government prevent the Income-tax department from collecting taxes in a State? Can another State Government prevent the NIA from proceeding to arrest a Terrorist located in the State? Can the Enforcement Directorate be prevented from investigating or arresting a smuggler or money-launderer physically located in a State? Obviously the answer is No. If any of these is visible, it would be a case of a State assaulting Federalism. The prevention of a Central investigating agency discharging a function given to it by the Supreme Court is a direct assault on Federalism."

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will today hear applications moved by the CBI alleging destruction of electronic evidence related to the Saradha chit fund scam case by the Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar. The CBI alleged that it has moved the application as an extraordinary situation has arisen in which the top police officials of the West Bengal Police are sitting on a dharna along with a political party in Kolkata.