'Political vendetta against most vocal critic of this govt': Karti on father Chidambaram's arrest

Calling his father the "most vocal critic of the government", Karti Chidambaram on Thursday said the CBI action was aimed at silencing the former finance minister and to taint the Congress party. The Lok Sabha lawmaker also claimed that he has been raided the most number of times by probe agencies in the history of the country.

Karti's comments come after his father P Chidambaram was arrested by the CBI from his residence over the INX media case. The Lok Sabha MP, who is also being probed in the case, also denied meeting Indrani or Peter Mukerjea - promoters of INX media.

"This is a completely motivated political witch hunt, it is to tarnish Congress' image and to try to silence the most vehement critic of the Centre. My father has been the most vocal, articulate and vehement critic of this government.

In order to silence him, this action has been taken. This has absolutely no legal basis," Karti said after reaching Delhi airport from Chennai.

The Congress



lawmaker from Sivaganga said that in spite a thorough probe there is no case against him and his father. Karti is also being probed over the alleged INX media scam.

"I have said this before...these are events, which apparently happened in 2008 for which an FIR was filed in 2017, a good nine years later. I have been summoned 20 times and raided four times. Nobody in the history of India was raided as much as I was raided. I was also in the custody of CBI for 11 days. Every single person associated with me, even as a casual acquaintance, were summoned and they still don't have a case," Karti said.

The Congress leader stated that he and his father are being targeted as there is "no legal requirement" for P Chidambaram to be available to anybody. "An anticipatory bail plea which was filed in May 2018, for which arguments got over in January 2019....where the judgement was reserved for seven months, the judgement came out... and there was no requirement for him to be available for anybody," he said.