Top Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary held over graft charges

The CBI on Monday arrested Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s principal secretary, Rajendra Kumar, and four others for alleged involvement in a corruption case, a development that could have significant political ramifications in the national capital.

Mr Kumar, sources alleged, has emerged as the “kingpin” in the `50-crore scam who first got involved in 2006. His arrest is likely to see yet another political slugfest between the AAP government in Delhi and the BJP-led government at the Centre.

Soon after Mr Kumar’s arrest, Mr Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, held a press conference where he criticised the Centre, calling the senior bureaucrat’s arrest a conspiracy to destabilise the AAP government. “The timing of arrests and transfer of other officers is very suspicious. The Modi government is taking revenge for its election defeat from the people of Delhi. This is an attempt to paralyse the Delhi government,” Mr Sisodia told reporters.

Mr Kumar, a 1989-batch IAS of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and UT cadre, has been accused of favouring private firms by allotting government contracts without following the proper tendering process, resulting in massive losses to the government exchequer. He was appointed principal secretary to the CM in February 2015, when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in Delhi the second time. The CBI had raided Mr Kumar’s office at the Delhi Secretariat in December, triggering a war of words between the AAP and the Centre.