Both parties claim sole credit for diamond traders’ release.
It is said success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. Nothing could illustrate this better than the ruling BJP in Gujarat and the opposition Congress vying for credit for the release of some Gujarati diamond traders from Chinese jails.
A Chinese court on Wednesday ordered the release of 13 out of the 22 Gujarati diamond traders held in Chinese prisons and sentenced the remaining nine to jail terms ranging from three to six years.
The Congress had claimed on Wednesday that Sonia Gandhi’s political advisor Ahmed Patel, and Banaskantha MP Mukesh Gadhvi were in communication with the Chinese government all the while for the early release of the diamond traders. On the other hand, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi also tweeted about the release of the traders.
Last month, Modi had gone to China with a group of businessmen and had requested the Chinese government to release the traders who had been in jail for nearly two years.
When the local media published the names of Congress leader Ahmed Patel as the man responsible for the traders’ release, the BJP was apparently angry and issued a strong statement against the Congress on Thursday.
BJP state president RC Faldu and the party’s national vice-president and Rajya Sabha MP, Parshottam Rupala, issued a statement flaying the Congress.
"Congress leaders have shown hypocrisy and lack of moral values in claiming credit for the release of the diamond traders. None of the Congress leaders showed any sympathy for the families of the traders when they were lodged in jail for the last two years. Now when Modi's efforts have yielded result, they are trying to take credit for it," the statement said.
The authorities in Shenzhen province of China had arrested the 22 diamond traders, most of them from Surat or Mumbai, on the charge of smuggling on January 8, 2010. They were found smuggling diamonds into Shenzhen from Hong Kong without paying any duty. They were also charged with being part of a smuggling ring.
On Wednesday, however, a court in Shenzhen acquitted 11 of the arrested traders and ordered their deportation. One of the traders was sentenced to one year and 11 months in jail. However, he would be released immediately and deported as he has already spent 23 months in jail. The court also slapped a fine of one million Yuan (approximately Rs80 lakh) on another diamond trader and ordered his deportation.
Out of the remaining nine traders, five were sentenced to three years in jail, while one was sentenced to 42 months' imprisonment. Two of them got 5-year prison sentences, while one was jailed for six years.
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