New Delhi: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has left the CBI headquarters in Delhi where he was questioned for nine-and-half hours Sunday in connection with the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. Flanked by security on either side, the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had arrived at the agency’s HQ around 11am amid inputs of ‘mobilisation’ by party workers.
“The CBI asked me about everything, starting from 2020 — the start of the liquor (excise) policy — till the end of it,” he told reporters Sunday evening.
Kejriwal said the CBI asked him “56 questions” and that he was now convinced the agency does not have “an iota of evidence” against the AAP and its leaders. He also announced that a special session of the Delhi Legislative Assembly will be convened Monday.
#WATCH | CBI questioning conducted for 9.5 hours. Entire alleged liquor scam is fake, AAP is 'kattar imaandaar party'. They want to finish AAP but the country's people are with us…: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal speaks after nine hours of CBI questioning in excise policy case pic.twitter.com/ODnCGKv7R3
— ANI (@ANI) April 16, 2023
Earlier in the day, with Section 144 of the CrPC in place, the area around the CBI HQ wore a deserted look despite the road on which it is situated swarming with police cars, Rapid Action Force (RAF) vehicles and large numbers of paramilitary forces.
This was the first time that Kejriwal, who is not an accused in the CBI FIR, was questioned in connection with the alleged scam. Former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, named as an accused in the case, has been in jail since his arrest by the CBI on 26 February and then by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 9 March on charges of money-laundering.
Kejriwal was questioned on alleged irregularities in the modification of the Delhi government’s now-withdrawn excise policy. According to the CBI’s FIR, accessed by ThePrint, the named accused were instrumental in “recommending and taking decisions pertaining to excise policy for the year 2021-22 without the approval of the competent authority, with an intention to extend undue favours to the licensees post tender”.
In a video message before reaching the CBI HQ, Kejriwal had claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have ordered the agency to take him into custody. He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying, “PM sir, do whatever you want, AAP will not stop.”
He also visited Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Raj Ghat and addressed the media. Before walking into the CBI HQ, he even had a quick chat with Mohinder Goyal, the sole AAP MLA present there at the time.
Protesting outside the CBI office in Delhi during Kejriwal’s questioning were Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP leaders Atishi, Raghav Chadha, Sanjay Singh, and Saurabh Bharadwaj — all of whom were detained by the police but released later.
Meanwhile, AAP Delhi convener Gopal Rai chaired an emergency meeting of party functionaries Sunday which was attended by AAP national secretary Pankaj Gupta, Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi, and Deputy Mayor Aale Iqbal, among others.
‘If I’m a thief, no one’s honest’
Calling the agency’s notice a ‘witch hunt’, Kejriwal had alleged Saturday that PM Modi “was steeped in corruption from head to toe”. In a video message on Twitter, he said he would honour the summons to show that if he was a thief, “no one on the planet was innocent”.
Kejriwal also slammed the PM over purported disclosures made about him by former J&K governor Satya Pal Malik, whom the Delhi CM described as someone “very close to Modi ji”.
Claiming that no other political party in India had been attacked in the last 75 years like the AAP, Kejriwal said this was because it gave the people a hope for change.
According to media reports, the BJP responded to his allegations by branding Kejriwal the mastermind and “kingpin of the chess game of graft” that placed his cabinet colleagues in jail.
AAP leaders detained
On Sunday, the Delhi Police detained approximately 1,500 AAP leaders and workers who were protesting in support of Kejriwal, said Delhi Minister Gopal Rai, of whom, 1,379 people were kept in different police stations and others were taken in buses”.
AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha said the aim of the detentions was to “destroy AAP so that there is no one left to challenge BJP”. “Delhi Police has arrested us for sitting peacefully and is taking us to some unknown place… what kind of dictatorship is this?”
Meanwhile, AAP leader Damanpreet Singh, the Leader of the Opposition in the Chandigarh municipal corporation, along with party councillor Anju Katyal, were allegedly detained by Delhi Police for pulling down posters in the national capital calling on Kejriwal to resign.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)