Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has dismissed Opposition parties’ charges that the Central government is deploying investigative agencies like the Enforcement Directorate to put pressure on them, calling such allegations ‘baseless’ and ‘impossible’.
That such charges were levied “openly” after meetings between Opposition-ruled States’ leaders such as K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Uddhav Thackeray and Mamata Banerjee, was in itself a signal that no such pressure was put, the Minister pointed out.
“Suppose even for a minute, I am not saying it is true, but if we were using investigating agencies to pressurise the Opposition… all three of these have met and have given statements out in the open. So what was the effect of this pressure? There is no pressure being put,” she pointed out.
