BJP national president J P Nadda Monday sought answers from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on the alleged excise policy ‘scam’, telling him not to “deviate” from the issue.
“Kejriwal ji, corruption of such a massive scale has taken place in your government, Delhi has suffered huge financial loss. Instead of talking about nonsensical things… why don’t you place all facts and figures before the media and the people of Delhi,” said Nadda while speaking at a press conference during his two-day visit to Tripura.
He added, “Kejriwal is yet to answer our questions on the excise policy. If you are honest, say this in court. At times, he says we want to arrest him, then he says that we are troubling him. There was such a big scam and Delhi suffered a loss. We put out the numbers. Tu idhar udhar ki baat na kar tu ye bata karwan luta kaha (Don’t deviate and come to the point).”
On August 19, the CBI conducted raids at various places, including Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s residence, in connection with the alleged excise scam. The AAP has denied the allegations.
“Every culprit cries foul when he is caught and says he is being framed, calls himself clean, innocent and honest. If you are so honest and if you have not committed any crime, why don’t you go to the court and give your statement? Why is your minister in jail,” Nadda said.
BJP MLAs on a dharna at the Delhi Assembly. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha)
Kejriwal has not spoken a word on the excise policy scam, he said. “Sometimes, he (Kejriwal) says the Union government wants to put his leaders in jail, sometimes he says he and his government are being harassed, but he never talks about the massive corruption in the excise (policy),” he said.
“Why doesn’t Kejriwal function as per Constitution? It is absolutely absurd to say everything works as per wishes of the BJP, this is highly irresponsible behaviour by Kejriwal.”
BJP alleges ‘classroom scam’
Soon after Kejriwal placed the ‘confidence motion’ in the assembly to prove that all AAP MLAs are with him and BJP’s ‘operation lotus’ had failed, BJP leaders called it a ploy to distract people’s attention from “excise and education scams”.
BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia alleged that the city government had increased the budget for construction of classrooms in its existing schools, ignoring guidelines of Central Public Works Department. He cited a Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report sent to the Delhi government’s vigilance department in 2020 to allege that construction cost was increased by Rs 326 crore. “The AAP government promised to construct 500 new schools in Delhi. That never happened. They then said they’ll build more classrooms in existing schools. The number of rooms was increased from 2,400 to 7,180. The construction cost was increased by up to 90 per cent,” Bhatia alleged at a press conference.
BJP MLAs also started an overnight dharna at the Assembly premises demanding sacking of Sisodia and Satyendar Jain over alleged corruption.The AAP hit back, with Kejriwal saying in the assembly: “When they couldn’t find anything in the liquor policy, they are going after schools… They are saying the AAP government has constructed more classrooms and toilets… They are saying why did you construct a large number of toilets. Why shouldn’t we; we want to provide better infrastructure and education facilities to our children, safe hygienic facilities to our girl children… What is wrong in it? We will make.”