Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 26: Two days after his first order, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday issued his second order from inside the Enforcement Directorate’s lock-up. The Chief Minister’s fresh direction, shared by Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, was to ensure the availability of free medicines and pathological tests at government-run Mohalla clinics at all circumstances.
Mr Bharadwaj said the Chief Minister wanted to ensure that no Delhi resident faced any inconvenience because he was behind the bars. “Irrespective of whether he is in or out, whenever an underprivileged person goes to a government hospital to get medicines, he/she should get it. A middle class person can buy medicines, but lakhs of underprivileged families in Delhi are completely dependent on government hospitals and Mohalla clinics for medicines. Some of these medicines need to be taken lifelong,” Mr Bharadwaj, in charge of health portfolio, said at a press meet.
He added that many people were dependent on the Delhi government’s Mohalla clinics for regular blood tests. “The Chief Minister has received information about problems in the free test facility in some Mohalla clinics. So, he has asked me to ensure that all hospitals and Mohalla clinics provide tests and medicines for free. For us, his direction is like an order from God. And we will act on this on a war footing,” he said.
Mr Bharadwaj said Mr Kejriwal was in jail, but he was thinking about Delhi residents every moment. “His sole concern is that no service is affected in his absence. We are his soldiers and we will work round the clock, but we will ensure that Delhiites face no inconvenience.”
Earlier, on Sunday, Delhi minister Atishi had shared the Chief Minister’s first direction from inside the lock-up. Ms Atishi had said Mr Kejriwal had asked to ensure adequate water supply to areas facing a shortage and to tackle sewer problems. “Arvind Kejriwal ji has sent me a letter and a direction. On reading it, I was in tears. I kept thinking who is this man, who is in prison, but is still thinking about Delhi residents’ water and sewage problems. Only Arvind Kejriwal can do this because he considers himself a family member of Delhi’s 2 crore people,” she said.
Responding to this, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said a “script has been written” by AAP. “This comes after no one in Delhi came to his (Kejriwal) support. The public didn’t express sorrow at his arrest. In fact, they are celebrating, distributing sweets, and bursting crackers that the man who made Delhi cry is behind bars now,” the MP from North East Delhi claimed. On the AAP stressing that Mr Kejriwal would run the government from jail, Mr Tiwari said “gangs are run from jail, not governments.”
The ED has taken cognisance of Ms Atishi’s statement that Mr Kejriwal sent her directions from the agency’s custody to initiate public welfare works related to water and sewerage, official sources said. The federal agency will conduct an investigation to ascertain if these directions from the arrested chief minister were in line with the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court’s order issued to the ED and Mr Kejriwal during his custody period, the sources said.
While remanding Mr Kejriwal to ED custody till March 28, the court had allowed his wife Sunita Kejriwal and personal assistant Bibhav Kumar to meet him every day for half hour between 6 and 7 p.m., apart from his lawyers for another half hour. Ms Atishi said at a press conference that Mr Kejriwal sent her a document from ED custody on Saturday with “his directions” to resolve public issues related to water and sewerage.
She said the Chief Minister directed that a sufficient number of water tankers be deployed in areas facing a water shortage to strengthen supply ahead of the summer months. Mr Kejriwal also directed her to issue instructions to the Chief Secretary and other officers in this regard, she added.
The ED, the sources said, will investigate if due processes were followed during these meetings. If any aberrations are found, the designated special court will be duly informed, they said. The meeting area where the arrestee meets his lawyers and family members at the ED headquarters on A P J Abdul Kalam Road in central Delhi is monitored via a CCTV video link, according to the sources.
Mr Kejriwal, who is also the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is understood to have been questioned over the last few days about the formulation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy 2021-22, his meetings with various government officials and private stakeholders and the statements made by other accused and witnesses in the case till now.
The ED is also investigating if mobile phones handled by the Chief Minister’s aides and staff were formatted or reported missing soon after the policy was scrapped and the agency and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered separate criminal cases to investigate the alleged irregularities. While the ED has alleged that Mr Kejriwal was the “kingpin and key conspirator” of the Delhi excise policy “scam,” the Chief Minister and his party have termed the agency’s action against him “political vendetta” by the BJP-led central government.
The Chief Minister is in a week-long custody of the ED after the central agency arrested him late on Thursday night in a money laundering case related to Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor policy. Earlier, the AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh have been arrested in this case. The AAP has denied all allegations and accused the BJP-led Centre of using probe agencies for political motives. The party has also said Mr Kejriwal would continue to work as Chief Minister from the lock-up.
