Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has sparked a fresh controversy in the CBI raid issue by suggesting the raid was to access files on the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA), which was headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for years.
Kejriwal claims the raid was conducted in an attempt to protect Jaitely.
The CBI conducted a raid on Tuesday at the office of Rajendra Kumar, Kejriwal’s principal secretary. The chief minister’s initial tweet about the raid unleashed a political storm, with Kejriwal attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The BJP and AAP resorted to a war of words in the aftermath of Kejriwal’s accusations.
Speaking to CNN-IBN, president of the BJP’s Delhi unit Vijender Gupta said,
This is what AAP stands for, tell a lie, distract people and politically interfere.
In response, the AAP’s Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed the central government had been exposed and their lies in parliament on Tuesday were out in the open.
Your government lost the plot in the parliament yesterday.Saurabh Bharadwaj
Kejriwal also took to Twitter to share a list of documents that were seized by the CBI from his office.
Supporting the chief minister’s disclosure of the documents seized, the AAP’s spokesperson, Ashutosh, reiterated that the CBI had lied about not raiding Kejriwal’s office.
The CBI spokesperson has said the CBI seizures during the searches at all 14 places were in the presence of independent witnesses, as per procedure laid down by law. He added that the search cum seizure memo containing details of all seized items will be produced before the competent court.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal’s verbal attack on Modi on Twitter during the raid has drawn criticism from many fronts, with the BJP demanding he apologise for his comments.
The kind of words he used against the PM is disgusting, obnoxious and outrageous.Jitendra Singh, Minister of Science and Technology
Arvind Kejriwal must apologise for his comments against the prime minister.Ravi Shankar Prasad, BJP spokesperson
In the raid conducted on Kumar and others, the CBI claims to have found about Rs 13 lakh cash and foreign currency worth Rs 3 lakh. In addition, Rs 2.4 lakh was found in Kumar’s residence. But the AAP has announced that the money found during the raid is from a valid salary account.
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