Arvind Kejriwal, prove your innocence; do not celebrate corruption by dancing on streets
Manish Sisodia, who has quit as Delhi Deputy Chief Minister, has been sent to five-day custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). This has come after Sisodia is said to have refused to cooperate with the investigative agencies during interrogations. He has also been facing a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the scam involving the ‘New Excise Policy’, which had been scrapped after serious objections were raised by the stakeholders.
Sisodia is not the first politician to have faced probes by the CBI and the ED. There have been several others who have been grilled and probed by the investigative agencies. A few of such politicians have spent years in jails. They have been convicted also and debarred from electoral politics.
Former Chief Minister of Bihar Lalu Prasad Yadav has spent several years in jail for his involvement in the fodder scam. He faced the CBI probe. After years of probe, he was convicted also, and he had already spent a large part of jail term in the Ranchi prison. But the CBI never had to complain that he was not cooperating in the probe. The workers of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) didn’t enact the drama on the street as is being done by the leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Ever since the CBI and the ED teams came knocking to Sisodia, he and his party have sought to take refuge in politics. They have sought to show that a political shield can save them from charges of corruption. Thus, Sisodia & Co in place of cooperating with the investigative agencies indulged in diversionary tactics. They have made claims of political witch-hunting. But they have failed to answer why the ‘New Excise Policy’ had to be scrapped. If the liquor policy was so good, then the Delhi government should have carried forward it. But Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was aware that if the city government continued with the policy, noose would have come to his neck also. In a bid to pre-empt, the investigative agencies from reaching him, he scrapped the policy.
Kejriwal may be clever. But he cannot duck the rule of law. The investigative agencies have been reported to have dug out several files which had been deleted from computers, laptops and smartphones. These records are evidence of the involvement of Kejriwal and his ministers to orchestrate the scam to a grand proportions. Also, why the filed had been deleted in the first place. This means that the attempts were made to destroy the evidences. If Kejriwal & Co were involved the destruction of evidences, then it amounts to serious charges.
Furthermore, it has also been reported that the investigative agencies have retrieved the electronic evidence of meetings in the run up to the adoption of the ‘New Excise Policy’. This points to a wide conspiracy involving several actors in the scam, and the investigative agencies will need to act with speed to nab the co-conspirators of Sisodia. The fact that Kejriwal holds no department and doesn’t sign any file should not be a shied for him. Being the chief minister of Delhi, Kejriwal is party to every decision taken by the council of ministers headed by him. The records of the meetings should reveal his complicity. Also, it’s important that money trails be revealed so that all the actors in the scam face the rule of the law.
In place of submitting to the rule of law and the judicial process, the AAP is indulging in celebrations of corruption. They have been blocking roads in the national capital in several parts. This is weird to say the least. Siosdia along with the Rajya Sabha MP of the AAP went to Raj Ghat before proceeding for the CBI questioning on the day he was finally arrested for evading the due process of law. This is cheap politics.
Mahatma Gandhi always stood for probity in life. He was the symbol of morality in public life. He lived by example for transparency. The AAP wants to hide behind Mahatma Gandhi to shield the sins of its leaders. They have been enacting such drama for ages. They had used the Gandhian Anna Hazare also for their ulterior motives. Thus, this is not shocking that Sisodia went to Raj Ghat by calling the camera persons.
But the people must question the AAP leadership on their bankruptcy on morality. Satyendra Jain is in Tihar Jail for over seven months now. It will be without a parallel in any parts of the world that a minister was in charge of prisons while being in a jail. Politicians are said to be thick-skinned. But the AAP leadership is unabashedly shameless. The prison officials had been reporting to Jain who is lodged in a cell in Tihar Jail. Only after the AAP leadership became aware that their protests on the streets didn’t resonate with the people that Kejriwal reluctantly made Sisodia and Jain resign from their respective positions as ministers. The time for taking high moral ground is now gone for the AAP.
Thus, the onus is on Kejriwal to prove his innocence. The shield that he holds no responsibility in the Delhi government by not heading any department will not hold long. Importantly, it’s pertinent to ask what made the party which shared the stage with Anna Hazare and produced dossiers of corruption charges against top leaders of other parties at Jantar Mantar where they enacted kangaroo courts abandon the promises of transparency within the party. The AAP had said that the party will have a Lokpal within the organisation to look into the affairs of funding. This was conveniently forgotten after the AAP came to power in Delhi.
The AAP had also promised that the party if it comes to power will establish a Lokayukta where complaints of corruption will be referred to. This was again conveniently forgotten. Did the AAP abandon its promises of transparency because the top leadership were deeply involved in the acts of corruption? This begs an answer, and the onus is on Kejriwal to come clean.
The AAP is now in power in Punjab. The Kejriwal-led party keeps mum on twin challenges faced by Punjab — rise of Khalistani elements and drugs menace. How could a political party which is in power in Delhi and Punjab maintain silence on such critical issues? The rise of Khalistani elements in Punjab has followed similar timeline as that of the entry of the AAP in the state.
In Delhi, Kejriwal & Co have oversold its Education Model to the world, while the evidences as revealed through applications for information filed under the Right to Information Act (RTI) has exposed the tall claims on the education front in the national capital. Nearly 80% of schools in Delhi are without science streams. What kind of an education model is there where the students in the age of technology are deprived of science streams? This amounts to the ruling AAP in Delhi committing frauds with the future of the children. The advertisement-led marketing has its own limits. The AAP will now have to answer to the ever expanding list of questions that beg answers from Kejriwal & Co. It will also be incumbent upon the BJP leadership to step up pressure and expose the masterminds in the liquor scam.
(Author is a political analyst)
