NEW DELHI: Congress came out in full support of its leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram, ahead of his arrest by CBI on Wednesday, slamming the government for using the investigating agencies to persecute the former minister. As allegations of Chidambaram “missing” surfaced on Wednesday morning, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted alleging that the Modi government was “misusing power”.

“Modi's Govt is using the ED, CBI & sections of a spineless media to character assassinate Mr Chidambaram. I strongly condemn this disgraceful misuse of power,” he said. Sister and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, was more cutting in her criticism of the government, claiming he was being “hunted down” because he had exposed the government’s many failures. “An extremely qualified and respected member of the Rajya Sabha, P Chidambaram ji has served our nation with loyalty for decades including as FM and HM. He unhesitatingly speaks truth to power and exposes the failures of this government, but the truth is inconvenient to cowards so he is being shamefully hunted down. We stand by him and will continue to fight for the truth no matter what the consequences are,” she said.

Communication head Randeep Surjewala referred to Chidambaram’s arrest as the “death of democracy under BJP.” “The shameless witch-hunt & unheard of abuse of CBI/ED by Modi Govt 2.0 is playing on every TV screen in India. It’s a sham and shame that democracy stands dead in the hands of the BJP,” he said on Twitter . Sources said the Delhi Congress team is likely to march to home minister Amit Shah ’s house in protest against Chidambaram’s arrest. The former minister’s dramatic arrest is also expected to cast a shadow over Congress’ commemorative programme for Rajiv Gandhi to be held in the national capital on Thursday, where Congress president Sonia Gandhi and top leaders are expected to speak.

