Cornered Kejriwal resorts to desperate attack
There are two problems with the trenchant criticism that the Aam Aadmi Party has launched against Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley over alleged irregularities in the affairs of the Delhi & District Cricket Association. The first is that it targets Mr Jaitley in the absence of any material available either in the public domain or with the agencies investigating the issue that indicts the Minister. And the second is the timing of the attack — it has come hours after the Central Bureau of Investigation raided the Principal Secretary to the Delhi Chief Minister in connection with alleged corruption the officer had indulged in. While AAP leaders on Thursday released at a Press conference what they claimed as evidence of Mr Jaitley's culpability, the fact is that much of that material is old hat; they were depending largely on stuff that the Serious Fraud Investigation Office had unearthed in the course of its probe, along with matter from an investigation that the DDCA had internally conducted. These have for long been in the public domain, and nowhere in that has Mr Jaitley been indicted pertaining to his tenure with the cricket body until 2013, after which he distanced himself from the DDCA, given his growing political engagements. The DDCA has admitted that certain procedural lapses may have taken place, but it has also added that many of them were rectified, and where necessary, fines were imposed on parties that had flouted the rules. In no case, however, Mr Jaitley could be accused of wrongdoing, much less of the ‘fraud’ that the Aam Aadmi Party and other opponents of Mr Jaitley have been claiming. The SFIO probe was initiated during the Congress-led UPA regime's tenure and the agency submitted its report in March 2013. The findings spoke of “certain irregularities” and “non-compliance or technical violations” but also categorically stated that “no fraud was noticed as alleged”. That ended the matter then, with the UPA Government not proceeding with the issue. It can be reasonably assumed that the Government of the day was satisfied with the findings; had that not been so, it could have proceeded in different ways. It is, therefore, strange that the Congress should now join the AAP chorus against the Union Finance Minister. Perhaps it believes that any stick is good enough to beat the Narendra Modi Government. The Congress's behaviour is in keeping with the misplaced belligerence it has been demonstrating since the beginning of the Winter Session of Parliament, during which it has disrupted its functioning.
The second problem with the Aam Aadmi Party's tirade, which has to do with timing, is as important to understanding Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's tactics. The Chief Minister and his party launched the slander campaign against Mr Jaitley hours after the CBI raided the Chief Minister's Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, who is considered close to Mr Kejriwal. The Chief Minister had opted for the officer's services despite knowing of the latter's less than clean record. Mr Kejriwal took the CBI raid on the officer as a personal affront and decided to counter-attack by digging up the DDCA issue. The idea was to deflect attention from his failure to meet the standards of anti-corruption he had set for himself and his party. Mr Kejriwal can fool himself but he cannot fool the public.