Hitting back at its critics for blaming the Modi government for the registration of a sedition case against 49 intellectuals and artists, the BJP on Tuesday said it was an “absolute falsehood” spread by vested interests and asserted that the development had nothing to with either the party or its dispensation at the Centre.

Putting up a strong defence of the government, senior BJP leader and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar noted that the FIR was filed after a Bihar court’s order on a petition. The government has not filed the FIR, he added.

“This has nothing to do with the BJP and the government. This is a canard which is always spread to defame the Modi government and used to give an impression that there is a choking of freedom of expression in a draconian fashion under it,” he told PTI.

“This is an absolute falsehood spread by vested interests and tukde-tukde gang,” he said.

The FIR was lodged in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district against 49 intellectuals, including Aparna Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Ramchandra Guha, for alleged sedition after they wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against growing incidents of lynching.

The case was registered after a chief judicial magistrate passed an order on a petition filed by a lawyer alleging that the writers had tarnished the image of the country.

Several groups and opposition parties have targeted the Modi government over this.

Javadekar refrained from naming anyone but said that spreading falsehood and falsification of facts is an old practice of critics to defame the Modi government.

“This is exactly what is happening in this case. This whole gang has network world over. But people know who stands for what,” he said.