New Delhi: Amid allegations of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Satyendar Jain receiving favourable treatment in Tihar, a video has now surfaced of the Delhi minister meeting with a suspended jail superintendent in his cell.
The third such leaked video of Jain’s stay at the prison complex shows him meeting Ajit Kumar, who was superintendent of jail number seven until earlier this month. In the earlier videos, Jain was seen getting a massage reportedly from an undertrail accused of rape and eating ‘outside food’.
Jails in Delhi, including Tihar, are under the administrative control of the Delhi government with the principal secretary (Home) serving as administrative secretary of the prison department.
The latest video shows Jain in his cell, talking to three other men who leave as soon as they see Ajit Kumar, then superintendent of jail number 7, entering. Kumar pulls up a chair at Jain’s bedside and the two can be seen Chatting. The timestamp on the video shared by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders suggests that the video dates back to 12 September.
Ajit Kumar, the superintendent seen in the video, was suspended earlier this month for allegedly facilitating “special treatment” to Jain who has been in Tihar since 31 May in connection with a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Launching a scathing attack on the Arvind Kejriwal-led government in Delhi after the third leaked video surfaced on social media, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta wrote on Twitter that it seemed like the minister was holding a “shahi darbar (royal court)” and that the jail official went there to “mark his attendance”.
Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Verma, addressing a press conference in Delhi Saturday, demanded Jain’s removal as health minister. “Today is Constitution Day, and some people sitting on constitutional posts in the Delhi government are openly flouting the Constitution. This is happening for the first time in the history of the world that a cabinet minister is jailed for corruption and he is not being sacked from the post,” said Verma.
Asked about the third leaked video, Kejriwal said during a press conference earlier today that the public will give its verdict when votes are cast for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls next month. “MCD election, in two lines — ten videos of BJP vs ten things done by Kejriwal, and 10 guarantees. Public will answer on 4 December,” he said in a tweet later.
This will be the maiden MCD election since the unification of the three municipal corporations of Delhi which trifurcated in 2012. The BJP has held on to power in all three erstwhile MCDs for the last 15 years.
ThePrint had reported earlier that the BJP, after multiple brainstorming sessions over the last week, has decided to hold press conferences every day to target the AAP government in Delhi on issues of alleged corruption. This was part of a strategy crafted by BJP national general secretary B.L. Santosh, which the party believes may also dent the AAP’s electoral prospects in Gujarat where it is seeking to emerge as BJP’s primary challenger.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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