Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 26: With the Enforcement Directorate failing to name him in the first charge-sheet in the Delhi liquor policy case, the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia teased the central agency on Saturday to point out that despite all its efforts to nail the Aam Aadmi Party leaders in different alleged corruption cases, the agency had only substantiated the party’s charge that it was acting at the behest of the BJP to fabricate cases against the opposition.
“Even after “800 officers raided 500 places”, they didn’t manage to level any allegations against me,” Sisodia commented. Holding the BJP responsible for what he claimed as false charges against him, Mr Sisodia said: “Shame on the BJP. All their conspiracies will fail.”
His comments cm after an ED charge-sheet was filed at the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi which only named Sameer Mahendru as an accused in the alleged liquor scam. The central agency said more names will be added later on since investigation is still ongoing, though there was no mention of the Delhi Deputy CM.
Reacting to it, Mr Sisodia tweeted: “It is a matter of great pride for me that even after all their conspiracies and false FIRs, they are not able to make any allegations against me. My name is not there in the charge sheet prepared by a team of 800 officers after raiding 500 places.”
The tweet further said: “The charge sheet of CBI and ED proved that there was no liquor scam.” Mr Sisodia demanded the immediate removal of the Chief Secretary and the Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi for their alleged connivance with the BJP in trying to falsely implicate him.
“They got the Chief Secretary to draft a false report, following which, the LG [Lieutenant Governor] forwarded a false FIR. Now that neither CBI nor ED have found anything against me, the LG should be removed and the Chief Secretary should be suspended,” Mr Sisodia said.
Terming the absence of his name on the ED chargesheet as “victory of truth”, Mr Sisodia further said: “All the big leaders of the BJP have been shouting at press conferences and on TV channels for four months, saying that Manish Sisodia had done a scam for ₹ 10,000 crores. But nothing was found against me.”
Earlier today, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal stood by his party colleague. In a tweet, the Delhi CM questioned that since the Delhi Deputy CM’s name does not even figure on the ED chargesheet, shouldn’t Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologise to the country for implicating Mr Sisodia?
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED are both investigating whether the Delhi government’s excise policy, which has now been scrapped, was framed to provide undue and illegal favours to liquor manufacturers and distributors at the cost of the government exchequer. But none of the central agencies have so far been able to nail Sisodia on the issue, though they have also not cleared of suspicion.
About the alleged leaked videos of the Tihar jail showing another AAP minster Satyander Jain enjoying special privileges in the jail, Kejriwal said he did not need to respond to each of the alleged videos as the “people will answer” in the upcoming civic body polls.
“MCD elections are becoming quite clear, it’s BJP’s 10 videos versus Kejriwal’s 10 guarantees. Let’s wait till December 4, people of Delhi will give a reply to all those videos,” he said, soon after yet another video of Delhi minister Satyander Jain chatting with guests and meeting the now-suspended jail superintendent in his cell surfaced.
Mr Kejriwal had earlier defended Mr Jain, saying his treatment in prison has been by the book. “There were no VVIP facilities in jail for Satyander Jain. All that he got was according to the jail manual. The man is eating roti, you ask why is he eating roti. What kind of politics is this?” Mr Kejriwal said.