Close X
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
ADVT 
India

AAP, Congress Ask Arun Jaitley To Quit, CBI Rebuts Arvind Kejriwal

Darpan News Desk IANS, 16 Dec, 2015 12:28 PM
    The AAP and the Congress on Wednesday separately asked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to resign over alleged wrongdoing in the Delhi cricket association which he once headed, even as the CBI denied again that it conducted searches at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office.
     
    Jaitley, former chairman of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), rubbished the charges against him. 
     
    "What is the specific allegation? I can't answer vague allegations without any basis," Jaitley told the media.
     
    Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party reiterated that the CBI did raid Kejriwal's office on Tuesday while targeting his Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar as it was looking for files related to the DDCA.
     
    Kejriwal tweeted that documents had indeed been seized from his office that were not linked to Rajendra Kumar. 
     
    He said CBI officials kept reading the DDCA file in his office. "They would have seized it. But after my media briefing, they left it. Not clear if they took a copy."
     
    Kejriwal added: "Finance minister lied in parliament... Why is Jaitleyji so scared of DDCA probe? What is his role in DDCA scam?"
     
    The CBI spokesperson countered that Kejriwal's office was neither searched nor sealed, and whatever was taken away was related to corruption allegations against Rajendra Kumar.
     
     
    "This information is being spread by certain quarters since yesterday to discredit the agency with intent to obstruct the investigation," the spokesperson said.
     
    Deputy Chief Minister and Kejriwal confidant Manish Sisodia demanded to know why the CBI seized the records of file movements of November-December this year if the agency was probing Rajendra Kumar's doings from 2007 to 2014.
     
    "I want to categorically say that it was CM's office where the raid was conducted, DDCA files were looked into," Sisodia said.
     
    The alleged search of Kejriwal's office rocked parliament for a second day, with Trinamool Congress members taking the lead. 
     
    Trinamool's Sudip Bandhopadhyay said the CBI should be renamed "GBI" -- Gujarat Bureau of Investigation.
     
    As AAP's most vocal Lok Sabha member, Bhagwant Mann raised slogans near Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's podium, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood up and offered him a glass of water.
     
    Ignoring the CBI denials, AAP leader Sanjay Singh insisted that the CBI did search Kejriwal's office and said Jaitley was involved in the what he claimed were huge financial bunglings in the DDCA.
     
    He said the AAP would make public the documents related to DDCA on Thursday.
     
    The Congress demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the alleged financial irregularities during Jaitley's tenure as the DDCA chief.
     
    Calling the Delhi government's threat to probe the charges as empty rhetoric, it said Jaitley should resign from the government until the JPC finished its probe.
     
    The Congress listed numerous alleged wrongdoings which it said took place during Jaitley's tenure as DDCA chief from 1999 to 2013. 
     
    Meanwhile, social activist Anna Hazare questioned the CBI's raid but said Kejriwal should have checked officer Rajendra Kumar's background before appointing him as his principal secretary.
     
    "From the beginning Arvind has been fighting corruption. I have always told him that 'you should have people with strong character around you'."

    MORE India ARTICLES

    India's Minister V.K. Singh Triggers New Row, Says Intolerance Debate Paid For

    India's Minister V.K. Singh Triggers New Row, Says Intolerance Debate Paid For
    India's Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh has stirred a new controversy by suggesting that the ongoing debate on tolerance in India was a creation of "imaginative" minds of those "who are paid".

    India's Minister V.K. Singh Triggers New Row, Says Intolerance Debate Paid For

    BJP Elders May Frown, But Narendra Modi Still Has The Upper Hand

    BJP Elders May Frown, But Narendra Modi Still Has The Upper Hand
    The heightened prospects of economic cooperation with Britain are also likely to dispel some of the doom and gloom enveloping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the Bihar debacle.

    BJP Elders May Frown, But Narendra Modi Still Has The Upper Hand

    VHP Leader Ashok Singhal 'Very Critical', Say Doctors

    VHP Leader Ashok Singhal 'Very Critical', Say Doctors
    Senior VHP leader Ashok Singhal has been admitted to a private hospital in Gurgaon and his condition is "very much critical", a doctor said on Saturday.

    VHP Leader Ashok Singhal 'Very Critical', Say Doctors

    Punjab's Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal Rejects Resolutions Passed By Radicals' 'Sarbat Khalsa'

    Punjab's Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal Rejects Resolutions Passed By Radicals' 'Sarbat Khalsa'
    The gathering was the direct outcome of the conspiracy and complicity of the anti-Panthic Congress party whose leaders gleefully clapped their hands. 

    Punjab's Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal Rejects Resolutions Passed By Radicals' 'Sarbat Khalsa'

    Rajnath Says BJP 'Most Secular Party'

    The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the country's "most secular party", Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday.

    Rajnath Says BJP 'Most Secular Party'

    After Bihar Rout, Advani-Joshi Take On Modi; BJP Welcomes 'guidance'

    After Bihar Rout, Advani-Joshi Take On Modi; BJP Welcomes 'guidance'
    The BJP, in a statement, later said it was "fortunate" to have been led by leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani for decades, and welcomed any guidance and suggestion from the party's "seniors" on victories and defeats.

    After Bihar Rout, Advani-Joshi Take On Modi; BJP Welcomes 'guidance'