New Delhi : It was yet another day of political slugfest between the AAP and the BJP in the run-up to the Feb 7 Delhi assembly polls with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Wednesday calling the former a “brilliant propagandist” which wears the “label of honesty” on its sleeve.
However, former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose party has been accused of receiving dubious funds, dared Jaitley to arrest him if he had dome anything wrong.
Meanwhile, a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed Wednesday in Delhi High Court, seeking a CBI probe into foreign funds the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) received in the past and now allegedly in violation of law.
In an acerbic post on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s website, Jaitley said “Kejriwal is not a stranger to the tax laws” and “knew what his party was doing”.
Jaitley was referring to the Rs.2 crore funding to the Aam Aadmi Party allegedly received from bogus companies. A breakaway group of the AAP has levelled these charges.
Jaitley posed questions to Kejriwal.
“If Kejriwal were still a revenue service officer and a case of such money conversion through sham companies resulting in donations to a political party had landed on his table, what would he have done?
“Would he have asked the assessee to write a letter to the chief justice of the Supreme Court of India or allowed him to argue that a payment by cheque to political parties forgives all sins of black money conversion?”
“Would he have arrested the fraudulent assessee under the Indian Penal Code rather than proceeding under the Income Tax Act?
“He should be honest enough to tell the people what “Arvind Kejriwal, IRS (India Revenue Service Officer)” would have done under these circumstances,” Jaitley further wrote.
Kejriwal once again refuted the charges, asserting that his party took money through cheques.
“If I have done wrong, tell finance minister to arrest me. I am ready for a probe, these are false allegations,” Kejriwal said.
In another related development, advocate M.L. Sharma filed an application in the ongoing case that sought registration of a criminal case against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and others for allegedly receiving foreign funds in violation of law.
Sharma claimed that it has been revealed that lakhs of phone calls from Dubai and other countries have been made to Delhi, especially to the Muslim community, for supporting AAP’s election.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission cleared Kejriwal of charges of his name being incorrectly enrolled in the electoral list in his New Delhi constituency.
The poll panel’s lawyer told a court that Kejriwal’s inclusion in the electoral rolls was correct.
The pleas against Kejriwal were filed by Congress leader and his poll opponent Kiran Walia and NGO Maulik Bharat Trust,
They had questioned the legality of Kejriwal’s candidature from New Delhi constituency as he was a resident of neighbouring Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.