NEW DELHI: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday sparked a political controversy by referring to BJP chief Amit Shah as a "murder accused" during an election rally in Jabalpur. The Congress President also took a dig at Shah's son Jay Shah by calling him a "magician."

"Murder accused BJP President Amit Shah....waah! kya shaan hai....Have you heard Jay Shah's name? He is a magician, he made Rs 50,000 into Rs 80 crore in 3 months," Gandhi said in an apparent reference to the alleged disproportionate assets case against Amit Shah's son.

Upon which, Shah, while speaking to the media later in the evening, said there was a "politically-motivated" case registered against him in which court has already delivered its verdict.

"A fake case was registered against me in which court has delivered its judgement. The gist of the judgement is it was a politically motivated case & there is no evidence in this case," ANI quoted Shah as saying.

I don't want to comment much on Rahul Gandhi's legal knowledge, he further said.


Rahul Gandhi's comments came on a day when the Supreme Court slapped a contempt notice on the Congress President for wrongly attributing his remark on the Rafale deal to the top court.

This is not the first time that Gandhi has referred to Shah as a "murder accused."

Last month, the BJP had filed a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer of Tripura against Gandhi for allegedly referring to Shah as a "murder accused" at a rally in Khumulwng in Tripura.

In May 2018, in an apparent reference to the accusation that Shah once faced for his alleged involvement in the killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005, Gandhi had said: "People in India forget that the President of BJP is a murder accused. That's the truth. The party that talks about honesty and decency has a person who has been accused of murder as President."

Shah was discharged in the case in 2014. In 2016, the apex court also turned down demands that the BJP President be probed again.

(With inputs from IANS)