Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addressing the media at his residence in New Delhi on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Training his guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Aam Aadmi Party convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said he should spend at least two hours a day solving problems of people rather than “plotting” against AAP the whole day.
He also said that AAP is a “staunchly honest” party and the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the “so-called liquor scam” has proved that.
Reacting to the Chief Minister’s statements, the BJP said Mr. Kejriwal was suffering from “political cataract” and giving himself a “certificate of honesty” despite the alleged scams in his government.
“It is said the Prime Minister works 18 hours a day. For all these 18 hours you think about how to stop Kejriwal, how to arrest his Ministers… I request you, if you work even for two hours [a day] for the country, the people would get a little relief from pressing issues such as inflation and unemployment. Don’t be this negative, think a little positive for the people,” Mr. Kejriwal said in a video statement.
The AAP chief said the CBI chargesheet in the “so-called liquor scam” does not mention the name of senior party leader and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. “This, in a way, is a clean chit to Sisodia,” said the Chief Minister.
He said investigative agencies are saying there could be additional and supplementary chargesheets, but this was just to save face.
‘Certificate from PM’
“As I always say, we have got certificate of honesty from the Prime Minister. He was personally monitoring this case. He has been personally meeting ED-CBI Directors and giving them orders as to how to go about this case. The Prime Minister had given directions to arrest Manish Sisodia,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
“Now with pride, we say that AAP is staunchly honest, Kejriwal is staunchly honest,” he added.
“There’s barely a week to go for the MCD elections. If they had even a shred of incriminatory evidence against Manish Sisodia, they would not have waited for even a second before arresting him,” the AAP chief said.
Mr. Sisodia, who is also the Excise Minister, was one of the accused in the FIR on corruption allegations pertaining to the now-withdrawn excise policy.
‘Prone to opportunism’
Addressing a press conference, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said, “The entire country now knows that Kejriwal is a kattar beimaan (dishonest to the core)… The classroom scam or the excise scam or Satyendar Jain retaining his Ministerial post despite being in jail is no big deal [for the CM].”
Mr. Bhatia said Mr. Kejriwal was earlier quick to raise questions over the impartiality of probe agencies but now he is claiming the honesty of his deputy only because his name was not there in the CBI chargesheet. “This shows that the AAP chief is prone to opportunism,” he said.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana said Mr. Kejriwal “is in a hurry to give a clean chit to his Minister” even while the probe is still ongoing. “On one hand, Kejriwal is awarding his Minister a self-declared honesty certificate. On the other hand, he has maintained complete silence on Satyendar Jain, who has been in jail for over five months and been refused bail multiple times,” said Mr. Khurana.
(with PTI inputs)