AAP in the CBI crosshairs: Delhi ministers face a slew of agency probes since 2015, several slapped ahead of polls | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
In a number of these cases so far the CBI has filed chargesheets, even as the agency has also closed several cases for lack of evidence.
The CBI’s move to conduct a raid at Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s residence Friday in connection with alleged irregularities in the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s now-withdrawn new excise policy has followed a string of investigations that the central agency has launched against the AAP ministers and their aides in various cases since 2015.
In a number of these cases so far the CBI has filed chargesheets, even as the agency has also closed several cases for lack of evidence.
In December 2015, ten months after the AAP had first stormed to power in Delhi by bagging 67 of the total 70 Assembly seats, the CBI raided the office premises of CM Kejriwal’s then principal secretary Rajendar Kumar in a case of alleged corruption. The raid had sparked a major row that saw a livid Kejriwal calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “coward and a psychopath” over it.
A year later, the agency filed a chargesheet against Kumar, alleging he along with other accused entered into a criminal conspiracy and caused a loss of Rs 12 crore to the Delhi government in award of contracts between 2007 and 2015. Its FIR also claimed that the officials had taken “undue benefit” of over Rs 3 crore while awarding the contracts. Kumar later took voluntary retirement from the IAS.
Several investigations against the AAP government and its leaders were launched by the CBI in late 2016 and early 2017 in the run-up to the February Punjab polls in which the then debutant AAP was expected to do well. The AAP had then accused the Modi-led BJP dispensation of allegedly targeting it over its fear that the then ruling Akali Dal-BJP coalition would lose the Punjab elections. The polls were eventually won by the Congress with the AAP emerging as the largest Opposition party and the Akali Dal-BJP getting decimated.
Rating: 5