What would Kejriwal, IRS have done: BJP

The BJP on Wednesday mounted a fresh offensive on the AAP with two top leaders — Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad — targeting AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal for accepting “hawala” payments.

The ministers followed up on the allegations that surfaced earlier this week with regard to donations made to AAP by four companies that were found to have dubious credentials.

Each of these companies was found to have fictitious addresses and fictitious owners, leading the BJP to accuse the AAP of channelling laundered money. The AAP has responded by saying that all payments were received by cheques and its funding patterns are transparent.

Jaitley, whom Kejriwal had dared on Tuesday to “arrest me”, responded with a blog titled “What Would Arvind Kejriwal, IRS, Have Done?”

“AAP is a brilliant propagandist,” wrote the Finance Minister in his blog. “It claims to wear the label of honesty on its sleeve... Surely, when a company donates lakhs and crores to a party, the party would attempt to know as to who the controlling interests behind these companies are. The only fact that the donations have been made by cheque does not purify the transaction.”

He further asked to know how Kejriwal would have treated these transactions as an IRS officer. “Arvind Kejriwal is not a novice to India’s taxation laws. He is a former officer of the Indian Revenue Service. He knows very well that such transactions are dealt with under the Income Tax Act and not the Indian Penal Code. Why does he then dare the Finance Minister to arrest him? Is it only a bluff and bluster exercise?” asked Jaitley.

Prasad held a press conference at the BJP headquarters here to demand answers to the questions on how the AAP and Kejriwal, himself a former IRS officer, accepted donations from companies whose addresses were fake and the owners’ credentials’ were suspicious.

“Why is Mr Kejriwal running away? He has to give us answers about how money was accepted from companies whose addresses were found fictitious.

“A media investigation has revealed that one of the companies was shown to have been located in a post office! These companies have transacted no businesses. How did AAP accept ₹2 crore from these fictitious firms?” demanded Prasad.