Government denies Kejriwal’s charge on CBI targeting opposition

Stating that the central investigating agency is being misused in the same way as it was misused during the Congress rule, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday alleged that the actual goal of the raid conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was to “find evidences against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal”.

The office of Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar was raided by CBI yesterday in a corruption case triggering a fresh face-off between the AAP and Centre and a vicious political slugfest in which the AAP chief lashed out against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BJP dismissed as “false and foolish” five questions posed to the finance minister by AAP leader Ashutosh and accused AAP of using “diversionary tactic” to deflect attention from the corruption charges against Kejriwal’s principal secretary Rajendra Kumar.

“This is a complete murder of democracy and the Aam Aadmi Party feels it is imperative for all persons who value their freedom to protest against this unannounced emergency”, Menon said. “One can not say that clerk’s office was raided and not Chief Minister’s”, said Sisodia, Kejriwal’s most trusted lieutenant. In the evening, the agency issued a media statement: “The CBI categorically denies having seized any material during the searches which are not relevant to the investigation”. He alleged the probe agency seized documents “unrelated” to the agency’s probe against Kumar.

Sources said that Kumar, along with senior lawyer H S Phoolka, who is associated with Aam Aadmi Party, reached the Chief Minister house situated on Flagstaff Road and apprised him about CBI’s action. I can reply if they can tell me specific issue.

In between, he added, some CBI sleuths were taking photos of certain files and documents with their mobile phones and “WhatsApped them to their bosses”.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, the Delhi CM said, “Can Jaitley ji’s denial in press be taken as gospel truth?”

Along with Kumar, CBI also examined owner of Endeavour Systems Private Limited Dinesh Gupta and Managing Director of Intelligent Communication Systems India Limited (ICSIL) R S Kaushik here at its headquarters.