Kejriwal says CBI raids at his office, dubs Modi a “coward”

The Delhi Chief Minister dismissed as a “lie” the CBI and the government’s assertion that the raid targeted not him but Rajender Kumar – Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary, who has been accused of corruption.

The CBI registered a case against Rajendra Kumar, Secretary to the Delhi CM, on the allegation of abusing his official position by favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders from Delhi government departments. The Central Bureau of Investigation, however, denied raiding Kejriwal’s office.

But Kejriwal countered that the CBI, which is funded by the central government, was “lying”. Kejriwal however, insisted that it was his office that was being searched and dragged finance minister Arun Jaitley into the day’s allegations.

On the CBI raids, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Delhi CM’s office was not raided; CBI conducted raids after proper search warrant from the competent court”.

Kejriwal also demanded to know why ministers in the previous Congress government and other officers who also signed the supposedly corrupt contracts approved by Kumar were not raided. “I was about to order a commission of enquiry”, Kejriwal tweeted.

The CBI raids on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s office led to renewed ruckus in the Parliament, with the Opposition calling it a case of “political vendetta”. The raids were for the investigation into a case filed against Rajendra Kumar.

But the CBI said that the raid was not on Kejriwal’s office but that of his secretary. He added that the CBI was conducting similar raids at other locations related to him as well. Foreign currency of the value of Rs 3 lakh was also recovered from the residence of Kumar, CBI sources said.

A CBI team of eight officers, Delhi government employees said, entered the Secretariat around 9.30 am to conduct a raid. “I’ll fight till my last breath”. “But he won’t succeed as the public is with the truth”, senior leader and deputy CM Manish Sisodia tweeted.

Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of the state of Delhi, called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “coward and a psychopath” after federal investigators raided his administration’s headquarters in the Delhi secretariat Tuesday. “This is undeclared emergency [sic]”. When I was going towards the Chief Minister’s Office, I saw an unusual number of guards outside.