AAPv/s Jaitley: CBI replies to Arvind Kejriwal’s allegations

“It’s wrong to say that the Central Bureau of Investigation has been asked to target all opposition parties”.

“File movement register of the chief minister’s office has been seized”.

The Aam Aadmi Party today sprang to the defence of senior bureaucrat Rajendra Kumar, who is facing a CBI probe over allegations of corruption, and virtually gave him a clean chit.

After the raid at Mr. Kumar’s office, Mr. Kejriwal had said that the officer was just an excuse and he was the target. Kejriwal reiterated that finance ministry Arun Jaitley was using CBI to snoop around to get information on the enquiry launched by Delhi government into corruption cases of Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) which was headed by Jaitley for long. “Since Jaitley has lied on the floor of the House and misled Parliament, this warrants a privilege motion against him and the government”, he said.

In fact, as Arun Jaitley spoke of the matter in Parliament, Kejriwal stuck to Twitter as his medium, posting “Why is Jaitley ji so scared of DDCA probe? Modi is a coward and psychopath”, he said in another tweet expressing his anger over the raids.

The CBI on Tuesday raided the office and residence of Rajendra Kumar, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary, probing five contracts to a private firm worth Rs 9.5 crore between 2007 and 2014, when he allegedly facilitated these contracts.

According to CBI sources, Mr Kumar was again questioned today at its headquarters, a day after the CBI raided several places across the national capital and Uttar Pradesh.

The raid by CBI on the office of Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar in connection with a corruption case had set off a bitter war of words between Kejriwal and the BJP.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister and BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said: “There is no question of the resignation of Jaitley”.

Mounting a sharp counter-attack on the AAP Government, Union HRD Minister Smiriti Irani described the charges as a “blasphemous and preposterous campaign bordering on political hysteria” created to deflect the public attention from a “corrupt officer” working with Delhi Chief Minister Arvin Kejriwal. In a further escalation of the confrontation between the Opposition party and the government, the party claimed that a committee constituted by the Delhi government has found “gross financial irregularities’ in the DDCA. Moreover, he is trying to make it a Centre and state issue which it is not”, Naidu told the media here. The DDCA also held a press conference to strongly defend Jaitley.