Arvind Kejriwal met with Sanjay Singh’s family this evening.
New Delhi:
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the family of AAP leader Sanjay Singh who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case linked to the investigation into the Delhi liquor policy. After meeting the family, the Aam Aadmi Party chief said, “If we are dishonest, all our problems will be solved,” in a dig at the Centre which has been accused of misusing central agencies by the Opposition.
“The path of honesty is difficult. If we become dishonest then all the problems will end. All of them (BJP leaders) are corrupt from head to toe, they have no counter to our honesty,” he said.
Sanjay Singh is the third AAP leader to be arrested by a central agency and the second high profile leader to be arrested in the liquor policy case after Manish Sisodia. Another AAP leader and a former Delhi minister Satyendar Jain was arrested in May last year in a money laundering case.
“More than 1,000 raids have been conducted in this liquor case and several people have been arrested but they are not able to recover even a single penny,” said Mr Kejriwal.
The AAP Rajya Sabha MP’s arrest came hours after the Enforcement Directorate or ED conducted raids at his home in connection with the case. “Marna manzoor hai, darna nahin (I am ready to die, but not to be scared),” the defiant MP declared in a video message before he was taken away by the probe agency officials.
The Chief Minister said the arrest shows the BJP’s “frustration as it is going to lose the 2024 polls to the INDIA bloc”.
“Sanjay Singh sher hai (He is a lion). PM Modi has this misconception that these arrests will scare us,” he said.
The raids against Mr Singh took place after he was named by businessman Dinesh Arora, an accused in the case, who later turned ‘approver’. had claimed that the AAP leader had introduced him to Mr Sisodia, who was the excise minister.
The ED and the CBI have alleged the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who paid bribes for licences. The AAP has strongly refuted the charge.
The liquor policy was scrapped Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena recommended a CBI probe into alleged corruption.
The CBI on February 26 arrested Manish Sisodia, then the deputy chief minister of Delhi, for alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the liquor policy. He has been in custody since then. Mr Sisodia held the excise portfolio among the many that he handled as the deputy chief minister. The ED arrested him in a money laundering case stemming from the CBI FIR on March 9 after questioning him in Tihar Jail.
In April, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was also questioned for nearly nine hours by the CBI. He was questioned as a witness in the case. He hasn’t been summoned for further questioning since then.
