Jay Shah row: D Raja demands PM's response

Kolkata:  Senior CPI leader D Raja today demanded a response from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a media report’s claim that the turnover of the firm of BJP chief Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah rose by a huge margin after the party came to power in 2014. He said a probe should be initiated to reveal the truth.

“Why we are not hearing a single word from Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding allegations against Amit Shah’s son? We want that he should respond to the matter and should constitute a probe to bring out the truth. Let the allegations be probed,” Raja told PTI at the sidelines of a programme here. He said the time has come for the prime minister to act instead of pointing fingers at others.

In its article, news portal ‘The Wire’ had claimed that Jay Shah’s firm Temple Enterprise’s turnover zoomed by around 16,000 times from Rs 50,000 to around Rs 80 crore in 2015-16 after the BJP came to power in 2014.
Jay Shah today filed a defamation case against the news portal over the report and prayed for, “criminal action against the respondents for defaming and tarnishing the reputation of the complainant through an article, which is scandalous, frivolous, misleading, derogatory, libelous and consisting of several defamatory statements.” 

The row set off by the article escalated with the Congress demanding the BJP chief’s ouster. Raja, speaking on the issue of holding Lok Sabha and state Assembly polls simultaneously, said, “India is not a two-party democracy, it is a multi-party democracy where you have to create a national consensus before taking a decision. You cannot impose your whims on other political parties.” 

The CPI leader stressed on the need for creating a broader platform with the Left, secular and democratic forces, including the Congress to counter the BJP and RSS. “We are in favour of creating a broader platform with the Left, secular and democratic forces, including Congress to counter the BJP, RSS in India. Congress is a pan-India political party. But yes, the Congress needs to rework its economic policies,” he said.