Will take legal action against Congress' conspiracy-driven election campaign: Sitharaman

A day after a videotape as part of its sting operation on demonetisation was played out by opposition parties, Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday hit out at the Congress and said the BJP will initiate legal action against the "conspiracy-driven election campaign" of the Congress.

"I would like to state here, BJP is taking legal advice. We are taking every possible advice so that institutions and individuals who are part of this conspiracy to defame BJP, we will take them to the court. We will take action on them legally. We are not going to let this story down," Sitharaman told media at a press conference here.

"Congress did a sting operation and made it public on Tuesday, through TNN World, a website-based news portal. This was the same website which showed live Kapil Sibal's press conference on EVM, in January. This website was registered in December 2018," Sitharaman added.

The minister further claimed a Romanian is the director of the website.

"Exposure on demonetisation on Tuesday was shown on this website only. This website is registered for only a year. Maybe Congress has planned to close it after elections. Congress has adopted a conspiracy-driven election campaign. I am very grateful to the media for not giving more than a minute to their conspiracy-driven campaign," she said.

The minister told reporters that the website registered in December 2018 had also shown live Kapil Sibal's press conference on EVM, in January.

The opposition parties on Tuesday played a videotape at a press conference purportedly showing an alleged BJP worker in Ahmedabad exchanging the banned notes with the new denominations in lieu of a sum.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal said the tape exposed the alleged involvement of the BJP in demonetization and that it was done to benefit the saffron party.

He also accused the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre of swindling public money, terming it "treason". Sibal also accused the government of misusing government machinery, including police and banks to work in favour of the BJP.

The leaders of the opposition parties present at the press conference included Sharad Yadav from Loktantrik Janata Dal, Hemant Soren of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Manoj Jha from Rashtriya Janata Dal, Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjun Kharge from the Congress.