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Updated: Jun 19, 2020 01:00 IST

A day after former finance minister P Chidambaram was arrested by the CBI in INX media case, his son and and an accused in the case Karti Chidambaram said that his father’s arrest was nothing but an attempt to silence the government’s most vocal critic.

Speaking to reporters on his arrival in Delhi from Chennai, the Sivaganga lawmaker said: “I was summoned 20 times, raided four times. They still don’t have a case.”

“This is a totally vindictive and malicious act done by a pliant agency. This is only done to settle political scores. There is absolutely no necessity to have done this. It has been done only to create a spectacle on television and to tarnish the image of the Congress party, and to tarnish the image of the former Finance and Home Minister. This is a completely trumped-up case in which he has absolutely no connection whatsoever. This is being done only for political reasons,” Karti earluer told ANI in Chennai.

When asked about comparison with Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s arrest in 2010, Karti said, “I am not willing to make any kind of comparisons. I can only comment on the case pertaining to what is happening right now. All I can say is this is a completely trumped-up and vindictive act.”

Watch | Politically motivated witch-hunt’: Karti Chidambaram on father’s arrest

P Chidambaram was arrested from his house in Delhi’s Jor Bagh, after he failed to get a hearing in the Supreme Court, after a 90-minute drama that saw the former union minister addressing a press conference, CBI team climbing a wall of his house and scuffles between supporters.

“He (P Chidambaram) has been on anticipatory bail since May last year. The judgment has been reserved since January. And all of a sudden the judgment which came out, I respectfully disagree with it and that is why we have appealed in the Supreme Court. The matter is coming up on August 23, now we will have to see its legal status. We will fight this out politically and legally,” Kati told ANI

After his arrest by the CBI from his Jor Bagh residence, Chidambaram, 73, was taken to headquarters of the probe agency. He is likely to be produced before a CBI court at the Rouse Avenue on Thursday.

In his press conference, P Chidambaram rejected charges against him and his son Karti in the INX Media case, Chidambaram said FIR does not impute any wrongdoing by him and there was no chargesheet either by the CBI or ED before the competent authority.