Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Centre’s tug of war dominated the primetime slot on Tuesday.
The war which began after Arvind Kejriwal had tweeted that the CBI is raiding his office, quickly spilled over to television.
Kejriwal continued with the tweets and then a press conference accusing the Centre of foul play. It was met with an equally aggressive response from the BJP.
And that, quite naturally transitioned to primetime debates with the spokespersons.
On CNN-IBN, Aman Panwar of the Congress started the debate trying to explain that this raid, whether it took place in the CM’s office or not, had nothing to do with Arvind Kejriwal.
But the debate took an aggressive turn with BJP’s Sudhanshu Mittal getting into an argument with AAP’s Saurabh Bhardwaj.
This party (AAP) is used to lying with impunity. The CBI has not even entered Kejriwal’s office and it has clarified it repeatedly. They were just following Standard Operating Procedure.Sudhanshu Mittal, BJP Leader
AAP’s Saurabh Bhardwaj countered that argument saying in the past, union minister Venkaiah Naidu and the prime minister himself have said that the CBI is a political tool. He took a dig at the BJP saying, “But the moment Modi is at the helm of affairs suddenly the CBI is following SOP”.
Congress’ Aman Panvar jumped into the conversation.
There is no dispute that the BJP is using the CBI to take on its political opponents. This happened with Virbhadra Singh too.
The Namecalling
CNN-IBN’s Zakka Jacob tried to bring the debate back on track but that didn’t quite work out because the discussion moved on to name-calling.
When asked about Kejriwal’s tweets calling the prime minister a coward and a psychopath, AAP’s Saurabh Bhardwaj indulged in ‘whataboutery’.
Bhardwaj said that the prime minister was not far behind. That while on the xampaign trail, Modi had called Kejriwal AK-49, a naxalite and even passed sexist remarks on the late Sunanda Pushkar.
To this, Congress leader Aman Panwar added his two bits. He referred to the time when Kejriwal called the Delhi police tulla and the Lt Governor a dalal.
Sudhanshu Mittal who had no counter to Bhardwaj’s comments said,
You are gutless, shameless. You do not have the courage to admit what is right or wrong. Don’t be so shameless.Sudhanshu Mittal, BJP Leader
At that point, Zakka Jacob interfered and asked Mittal to stop using such language. He turned the conversation towards Aman Panwar.
Today’s controversy is completely shocking because two governments with such a huge mandate are confusing the people. They have failed to deliver on their promises. The same happened with the Shakur Basti incident. This constant bickering needs to stop, both must show maturity.Aman Panwar, Congress Leader
Times Now Debate
Times Now had Nalin Kolhi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Ashutosh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Brijesh Kalappa of the Congress party, and senior journalist Arati Jerath.
While Nalin Kolhi mentioned that the raid was directed towards Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, Ashutosh continued questioning the audacity of the BJP for carrying out the raid in a Chief Minister’s office in the first place.
Congress member Kalappa, on the other hand, tried to stick to the party stance of attacking the BJP.
Two questions were raised in the debate,
- – Whether AAP will apologise for their party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s words – psychopath and coward – for the Prime Minister of the country.
- – Why was a bureaucrat with a questionable track record appointed as the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister’s office?
However, the discussion revolved around past mistakes committed by respective parties and making statements about the next general election.
The BJP spokesperson scored a point by digging out a script on the AAP website which showed the party’s compliance with surprise CBI raids.
He gained higher ground even as a part of the text that Kohli pointed out reads that the CBI still remains to be a “Caged Parrot,” as pointed out by the Supreme Court.
However, the State and Centre’s coordination during a raid on another IAS officer Sanjay Pratap Singh questioned the element of “surprise” in the raid.
In another report, Arvind Kejriwal mentioned that retrial of a file about Arun Jaitley’s alleged corrupt practices as the chairperson of DDCA was the aim of the raid.
AAP chief and Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has agreed to apologise for his words if the BJP/Centre apologises for their “acts.”
As the debate progressed, CBI registered a case of criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct against Rajendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to CMO Delhi.
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