Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, who entered politics as an anti-graft crusader, continued to be smeared by his former Cabinet colleague and suspended AAP leader Kapil Mishra for alleged involvement in a range of corruption scandals – from underhand land deals worth ₹50 crore to directly taking a bribe of ₹2 crore.
Late on Monday, Mishra asserted that a bogus bill amounting to ₹10 crore was made to favour Kejriwal’s brother-in-law. “Satyendar Jain told me that he has arranged a 7-acre land deal worth ₹50 crore in Chattarpur for Arvind Kejriwal’s brother-in-law’s Bansal family. Being PWD Minister, he also fudged bills up to ₹10 crore in the department to benefit Kejriwal’s relative,” Mishra told reporters here.
Earlier in the day, Delhi Anti-Corruption Bureau chief MK Meena asked Mishra to return with more evidence and provide a detailed statement, Mishra appeared before the press and claimed he would soon lodge an FIR before the CBI.
The Congress, which owes its political downfall largely to the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare but steered mainly by Arvind Kejriwal, seemed delighted with the proceedings. “The thing I like about the truth is, it has a habit of coming out,” tweeted Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi.
Congress’ city unit chief Ajay Maken promptly demanded Kejriwal’s resignation and asked the Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal to sanction the prosecution of the Chief Minister and his ministers.
The BJP asked Kejriwal to “go to jail and resign”. Quoting Kejriwal, who had once famously asked, “Should people just resign for corruption or should they be sent to jail for corruption?”, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said, “Either go to jail or resign” The BJP’s Delhi unit filed a complaint with the Lokayukta against Kejriwal and his colleague Satyender Jain.
A beleaguered AAP struggled with their leader’s defence, blaming the BJP and the Centre for aiming to “politically annihilate” Kejriwal through Mishra.
“Our only fault is that we are fighting for the rights of the poor and the marginalised and are raising our voice against the politics of hate. They want to silence our voice,” said AAP leader Sanjay Singh.
The AAP also displayed a 2016 letter written by Mishra to the ACB wherein he accuses the agency of trying to target Kejriwal in the alleged water tanker scam, even when his name was not mentioned in the evidence.
Mishra, on his part, said he has documents to back his allegations that Kejriwal had delayed the probe into a ₹400-crore water tanker scam.