Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday defended his deputy Manish Sisodia after Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena called for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Delhi Government’s excise policy and accused Sisodia of procedural lapses.
“Manish Sisodia is a “hardcore honest” man and will be framed in a “completely fake case” by the CBI and arrested in a few days,” Kejriwal predicted.
At an online press briefing, Kejriwal said he has known Sisodia for 22 years.
“I came to know that a case has been sent to the CBI against Manish Sisodia and the agency is going to arrest him in a few days. It is a completely fake case. There is not even an iota of truth in this case,” the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said.
“This case will not hold in a court. Manish is a hardcore honest man and he will walk free,” he said, adding that “AAP leaders are not afraid of going to jail as they have done no wrong.”
He alleged that the BJP was targeting his party for three reasons. “It is also worth understanding why they are targeting the AAP like this. First, it is because we are honest and the whole nation believes in our clean image. So they want to frame false cases against us to prove to the world that we are also just like them, corrupt, lying and deceitful.” Kejriwal said. “But nobody is buying this strategy and they know that the cases are false,” he added.
“Second, they want us to stop expanding our party. They want to defame us because they are scared as we are their up-and-coming challengers. But no one can stop the idea whose time has come, and AAP’s time has come,” he added.
“Third, they want to stop the good work being done in Delhi. The whole world is praising our work, and the Government of Singapore called us to show the world how we transformed the education system,” Kejriwal said.
Coming down hard on the BJP, Kejriwal said: “You are sons of Savarkar, who apologised to the Britishers while we follow Bhagat Singh, who chose to die rather than bow before the foreign powers. You should know that we are not scared of prison like you.”
“Manish Sisodia worked hard day and night to make the Delhi public schools such that even poor people’s kids can afford the same quality of education as a rich person’s child. This could not be imagined before the AAP came to power that the children of industrialists and doctors will sit alongside the children of rickshaw drivers and labourers and obtain the same quality of education,” he said.
Kejriwal said that the Delhi model of governance was garnering international fame because of its transformational healthcare and education policies, that was the reason that the Central agencies first targetted the NCT’s Health Minister Satyendar Jain and were now going after Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio.
Earlier, AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj alleged that the CBI probe was recommended by the L-G at the behest of the BJP-led Centre to implicate Sisodia in a fake case and keep the Kejriwal-led party at bay in the upcoming Assembly polls.
He also alleged that the Centre has been making efforts to “somehow” implicate all the Ministers in the Delhi Government in fake cases as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scared of the growing popularity of the AAP and Kejriwal. He, however, asserted that nothing will come of it and people will eventually understand everything and wonder why Modi is after the AAP leaders.
Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said that Prime Minister’s ED and CBI are clueless about how to bring fugitive offenders like Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, Nitin Sandesra, who fled the country after looting thousands of crores. “These investigating agencies only know how to harass and humiliate Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain who gave the Education and Health model to the country. Sushmita Sen could find Lalit Modi but the Prime Minister cannot find him and his other friends Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi and Nitien Sandesra.,” he added.
AAP MLA Atishi said that the BJP is accusing Sisodia of causing a loss to the exchequer, while, the new excise policy has generated a profit of Rs 1,300 crore to the exchequer in just four months.
“Manish Sisodia, whom the BJP is accusing of corruption, has transformed the future of 20 lakh children by revolutionising the education system of Delhi. Under the new excise policy, the Delhi Government earned a revenue of Rs 5,446 crore, while, on the basis of the excise policy of the old Governments, a revenue of only Rs 4,109 crore was generated in 2019-20,” she said.