DDCA row: Jaitley files defamation complaint against Kejriwal

Accusing Jaitley of ignoring corruption during his tenure as DDCA president, AAP spokesperson Ashutosh said, “The whole world should know that Jaitley has overlooked corruption and now he is trying to paint himself as a saint”.

“So the Prime Minister seems to be telling Jaitley that he should not continue as Finance Minister till he gets cleared”, he said addressing a joint press conference with party leaders Anand Sharma and Randeep Surjewala.

What is significant that while Modi government ministers like M Venkaiah Naidu, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Rajyavardhan Rathore have spoken out supporting Jaitley, Rajnath and Sushma, counted among Modi’s top ministers, have kept a studied silence.

Miffed over Jaitley’s reply, Sonia later led her party members in a walkout to register protest.

The latest fracas between the BJP Government at the Centre and Mr. Kejriwal has come after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the office of Mr. Rajender Kumar, the Principal Secretary to Mr. Kejriwal in connection with a 2002 corruption case.

“First, Congress disrupted Parliament over a case in which its leaders are accused of “grabbing” Rs 5000 cr assets by investing only Rs 50 lakh and now they have resorted to levelling false charges against Jaitley to do it”, Sharma said.

The Patiala House Courts in the heart of the city saw the rare spectacle of a union minister walking amidst a jostling crowd of BJP supporters, who shouted slogans against Kejriwal, to enter the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal to file the criminal complaint. He said a CBI inquiry would take too much time.

“If somebody is trying to spit on the Sun, it will fall on them”, he said.

Meanwhile, Gopal Subramanium wrote back to the Delhi Chief Minister accepting his request of constitute him as the Commission of Inquiry to probe the DDCA affairs. “Jaitley ji should cooperate with the Commission of Enquiry and prove his innocence there”, he added.

“The fight towards our goal is strengthened and driven by our passion to curb corruption”, read another Tweet. Also, the Delhi Cabinet had approved the convening of a day-long Assembly Session (a part of the ongoing Winter Session) tomorrow. He was also a RajyaSabha member. Among other things, he referred to the cost escalations in the construction of the DDCA stadium.

At the parliamentary party, no reference was made to similar charges made by BJP MP Kirti Azad, who was not present in the meeting. “Then only such an allegation can be taken up”, he said.

Azad said large-scale rigging of accounts was rampant in the cricket board but he did not name Jaitley in the scam.