Have you ever wondered why a Mulayam or a Mayawati is ready to extend the olive branch to UPA from time to time? Or why Karunanidhi, despite going through utter humiliation, ends up standing behind the UPA? Or how the UPA manages everyone so smoothly, except Mamata Banerjee? Well, the answer is in the central government’s massive manipulative control over the CBI, which can in turn then be used to blackmail anyone, minus rare exceptions like Mamata.

Let’s look into some cases. YSRC President YS Jaganmohan Reddy accused the Congress of using the CBI as a tool to harass its political opponents. Sakshi TV channel owned by YS Bharati, wife of YS Jaganmohan Reddy, aired an hour-long program defaming Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Following that, the CBI accused Jaganmohan Reddy of having disproportionate assets and charged him under multiple sections. Similar was the case with UP’s ex CM, Mayawati. After getting a clean chit in the Taj Heritage Corridor case in 2007, Mayawati accused the UPA government of using the CBI to drag her unnecessarily in the disproportionate asset case as a revenge for her act of withdrawing support to UPA. Similarly, the Sohrabuddin case came under CBI investigation too, but it was found that the UPA government used the bureau as a tool to harass the incumbent government in Gujarat, in spite of the case having no political connections. Even IPS officer Geeta Johri alleged in August 2010 that CBI, during the investigation of the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, pressurised her to falsely implicate former Gujarat Minister Amit Shah in the case to harass the BJP government. It’s not that the mining scandal was not in the knowledge of the Centre, but it is alleged that the government used the CBI to put the Reddy brothers behind bars due to their closeness with BJP.