People forget that Amit Shah is a murder accused: Rahul Gandhi

Raking up almost a decade old Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, Congress president Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on Amit Shah and said that BJP has "a person who has been accused of murder as the president".

Gandhi, who is in Bengaluru to campaign for his party ahead of Karnataka assembly elections, said that Shah does not have a "lot of credibility" as he is a murder accused.

Gandhi was referring to Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case in which Shah was an accused. In 2010, Amit Shah was accused of having orchestrated the extrajudicial killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and his criminal associate Tulsiram Prajapati. It was then alleged that the killing was orchestrated by senior police officers and at the behest of then Gujarat Home minister Amit Shah. A Special Court had later discharged Amit Shah from the case due to lack of evidence in December 2014.

"Amit Shah has been accused of murder. Don't think he has lot of credibility. People in India forget that BJP President is a murder accused. Party that talks about honesty, decency has a person who's been accused of murder as President," Rahul Gandhi said in Bengaluru today (May 8).

Gandhi also trained gun at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked as to why the BJP has chosen BS Yeddyurappa as the chief ministerial candidate when there were corruption cases against him in the past.

"We are repeatedly asking the Prime Minister why has he chosen a corrupt person, who has been in jail as his party's CM candidate?" he asked.

In five cases issued in 2011, Yeddyurappa was alleged to be responsible for Illegal de-notification of land. The Karnataka High-court in 2015 set aside this order, thereby quashing the cases against him. After the high court quashed former governor HR Bhardwaj's sanction to prosecute BS Yeddyurappa, a special Lokayukta court struck down four other FIRs against him. In a major relief to Yeddyurappa and BJP, Karnataka High Court had set aside the sanction given by then Governor HR Bhardwaj for his prosecution in several cases of alleged illegal de-notification of land, and asked the incumbent Vajubhai Vala to have a fresh look at it.