A day after the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) filed defamation suits against Kirti Azad and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for making defamatory remarks against it regarding finances and functioning, suspended BJP MP on Sunday said he would continue his fight against the alleged corruption in the cricket body.
“… Nobody can deter me. I am the son of a freedom fighter. Nobody can deter me from fighting against corruption. I shall do that till the last drop of my blood,” Azad told newsmen in Kochi in reference to the DDCA’s defamation suit and the action the BJP had taken against him after he raised the allegations of corruption.
Despite the BJP’s disciplinary action, Azad continued his attack against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over the DDCA corruption issue. Reiterating his corruption charges against the DDCA, he accused it of cost escalation without proof in the renovation of New Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in 2008.
The former cricketer also said that he wanted to bring the matter of DDCA corruption to the notice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had sought an appointment with him. He said he hoped to get an opportunity to explain everything to him once he got time to listen to him, adding that he was yet to get the appointment probably because the PM was busy.
Replying to a query on the defamation suit filed against him, Azad said he was grateful to all those who had initiated a case against him but warned that more evidences would be coming up “one after the other” on the corruption in the cricket body. He also expressed doubts about a CBI probe into the charges of corruption in the DDCA.
However, he said he would honour whatever decision the BJP took in his case. The BJP had suspended him on December 23 for anti-party activities after he ran a campaign on the alleged corruption in the DDCA at a time when Jaitley was heading it. But he claimed that his fight was not against the Finance Minister and that he had never named him.
Though he demanded to know why people were making out as if this was a battle between him and the Finance Minister, Azad said, “I want to know what I have spoken against the party.” He added that he still stuck to the line adopted by Prime Minister Modi on matters related to corruption.
Stating that he had nothing to say about Jaitley, Azad said that he had been informed (of what was allegedly going on in the cricket body) through “200 letters, 500 e-mails”. “I am not raising this issue against any particular person. My only aim is to fight corruption,” Azad said, adding that if anyone wanted to learn corruption the best way was to join the DDCA.
The former cricketer alleged that the resolution which decided to file defamation case against him was circulated from a fake e-mail ID. Claiming that even general secretary Anil Khanna had denied having sent such a letter to the members, he said the Government nominees in the DDCA had never reported about the corruption in it.