Vadodara: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Madhu Shrivastava on July 7 accused Zahira Sheikh and her family members of conspiring with the Congress Party to defame the Narendra Modi government and threatened to file a defamation suit against her.

Denying that he or his cousin, Congress councillor Chandrakant Shrivastava, had any role in turning the witnesses in the Best Bakery case hostile, the BJP MLA said he did not know Zahira nor had he ever threatened her.

Stating that Zahira had made six different statements so far relating to the case, Shrivastava said that now it was for the courts to decide which of them was true.

He said that Zahira could have sought help from the Police Commissioner or the court directly if she was threatened. He alleged that the Mumbai-based NGO was now supporting her to tarnish the image of the BJP government.

Zahira and her mother Sairunnisa the other day said they had turned ''hostile'' in court as a BJP MLA and a Congress councillor has threatened them during the trial.

ANI