Congress, Gandhis support P Chidambaram, slam Centre over INX Media case developments

New Delhi : The Congress and its leaders lent support for its senior leader P Chidambaram, who is wanted by the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation, in a corruption case related to INX Media.

Rahul Gandhi tagged the development as "disgraceful misuse of power", his sister Priyanka Gandhi said the former minister was being "shamefully hunted down".

On Tuesday, Delhi High Court denied P Chidambaram's anticipatory bail saying "magnitude and enormity" of material produced by the investigating agencies "dis-entitles him from any pre-arrest bail".

Within a couple of hours, officials of the ED and the CBI, gathered at his residence, but failed to find him.

This morning, as the news came of the lookout notice, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, protested vehemently against the move of the government. A tweet from the party's official handle read:

"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," Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

His sister Priyanka Gandhi tweeted: "An extremely qualified and respected member of the Rajya Sabha, @PChidambaram_IN ji has served our nation with loyalty for decades including as Finance Minister & Home Minister. 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."

BJP is maintaining silence on the matter, the only comment came from BJP chief Amit Shah who slammed Priyanka Gandhi and said, "she stood by Vadra, backing Chidambaram is natural".