Modi has overcome sustained campaign over Gujarat riots: Jaitley

New Delhi: BJP leader Arun Jaitley today said his party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has been able to overcome a sustained campaign against him over the 2012 Gujarat riots in which a section of the media had also targeted him.

Jaitley said there was time when a major section of the media was also involved in targeting the Gujarat chief minister. "But he had the capability to go over the head of the media and directly communicate with the people where your views are believed more than what is being said against you," he said.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley. Reuters

Delving into the past, he said soon after the Godhra incident, a campaign had started to project that the coach carrying kar sewaks was not put on fire from outside, but the flames had erupted from inside the compartment.

"The first aspect of the conspiracy against Modi was to prove somehow that anti-nationals did not start the fire and nothing happened at the (railway) station. The fire erupted inside the compartment. A section had started to propounder this make belief theory from day one," Jaitley said blaming a section of media and some NGOs.

He was speaking at the launch of a book Narendra Modi - a victim of manipulations in New Delhi.

The Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha also slammed the findings of the justice UC Banerjee Committee on the incident, saying it was the "most disgraceful" chapter in Indian history.

Jaitley said the committee tried to prove that the fire started from inside the coach. "Falsehood has many versions, but truth has only one version....The report is now consigned to the dustbin," he said.

Jaitley said the claims made by IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt about a meeting at Modi's residence have been rejected by others present there.

"Hundreds were killed in police firing in Gujarat. It shows that the police was on the job. No one has been able to tell the number of people killed in police firing in 1984 riots," he said in an apparent attack on Congress over the anti-Sikh riots.

The BJP leader said the findings of the Supreme Court - appointed SIT have demolished the conspiracy theories against Modi.

PTI