NEW DELHI: Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Thursday claimed that a "gang of four" including Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhiya and CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana is working against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to help the Congress in sabotaging probes into cases against its leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram. Swamy said some Union Ministers were complicit with the Congress to save Chidambaram in the cases he had filed against him. "Hasmukh Aadhiya and Rakesh Asthana are a part of a four-member gang that is working against Narendra Modi. I am Modi's supporter but they're causing harm to him and his reputation. They're trying to save Chidambaram, who's the most corrupt politician," the BJP MP said.

Swamy, however, has not named the Union Ministers he claimed to be siding with Chidambaram, but said he will reveal the names in the coming days. He said because he is being backstabbed by his party leaders, therefore he will withdraw all the corruption cases he had filed against Congress leaders. "When I am fighting all these cases in the interest of the party and the nation, somebody from within is trying to backstab me. What else can I do."

Swamy's statement came after the government sent the top two CBI officers on leave to defuse the crisis triggered in the agency by their feud, with both the director Alok Verma and the special director Rakesh Asthana accusing each other of corruption.

Swamy also said CBI Director Alok Verma is an "upright officer" who was doing a "good job" to check corruption and urged Narendra Modi to reconsider action taken against him. "I urge the prime minister to reconsider removal of CBI director Alok Verma. He is an upright officer, while Asthana is a corrupt officer," Swamy alleged.

Earlier on Wednesday, Subramanian Swamy hit out at the Narendra Modi government for a major reshuffle in the CBI and termed the removal of CBI director Alok Verma through a midnight order a "massacre". He claimed that those involved in the "CBI massacre" were about to suspend Enforcement Directorate (ED) official Rajeshwar Singh and said if it happened, he would withdraw himself from the corruption cases he had filed.

"The players in the CBI massacre are about to suspend ED’s Rajeshwar so that he cannot file the chargesheet against PC. If so I will have no reason to fight the corrupt since my govt is hell bent on protecting them. I shall then withdraw from all the corruption cases I have filed," Swamy had said.