Kejriwal says Jaitley not given clean chit in DDCA row, not sorry for targeting minister
Kejriwal says Jaitley not given clean chit in DDCA row, not sorry for targeting minister
Asserting that his government did not give anybody a clean chit, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said that he would not apologise for targeting Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on the DDCA issue. Mr Kejriwal took to Twitter a day after the BJP demanded “public apology” from him for levelling allegations against Mr Jaitley on the issue and said, “BJP almost begging me for an apology, won’t oblige them. Let @arunjaitley be cross-examined in defamation cases.”
“No clean chit ever given by any Del govt probe. That report confirmed several instances of wrongdoings but did not fix responsibility,” Mr Kejriwal said in another tweet. On the Delhi government’s inquiry panel into the DDCA case, Mr Kejriwal said in another tweet, “It didn’t mention ANYONE’s name n recommended Enquiry Commission to fix responsibility, which we have done now.”
Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia posed four questions to the finance minister and the BJP over the alleged financial bunglings in the DDCA when Mr Jaitley headed the the cricket body and wondered why they were “running away” from a probe. “Our panel has not named anyone in this report. Does that mean that corruption happened during the period but ghosts did it Why there is so much rush to absolve Jaitley Why so much pressure Probe by the commission of Inquiry has begun yesterday (Sunday) only. Gopal Subramaniam whom we appointed as its chief had given the letter of acceptance yesterday,” Mr Sisodia told reporters.
Referring to certain allegations against Delhi’s cricket board, Mr Sisodia said, “Wasn’t Mr Jaitley the head of DDCA during 1999-2013 when these irregularities happened When laptops were hired at '16,000 per day; when cost of renovation of the the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium escalated to '144 crore from '24 crore. The companies that were given contracts in that period had same directors and same addresses. Does not this indicate towards corruption How did this happen then Who did it ”
Mr Sisodia claimed that attempts were afoot to manufacture a “clean image” of Mr Jaitley even before the government constituted probe panel starts going through the “largescale” irregularities. “The three-member probe committee report that the BJP is brandishing now was made public on November 17 itself. It essentially summarises the findings of SFIO and the internal reports of DDCA itself,” Mr Sisodia said.
All those reports establish “massive corruption” in elections, stadium construction, proxy voting and points towards financial irregularities, Mr Sisodia alleged. In making his point, Mr Sisodia also referred to suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad’s press conference where the latter made a series of charges against the DDCA authorities. “We just want Mr Jaitley to say whether or not he was the DDCA president from 1999-2013 If yes, why is he running away from probe ” Mr Sisodia asked.
Mr Jaitley had denied allegations levelled by the Kejriwal government.
