The CBI has summoned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the excise policy scam case on April 16, officials said on Friday. Kejriwal has been asked to be present at the agency headquarters at 11 a.m. to answer queries of the investigating team, they said.
Addressing a press conference, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the CBI summon was a conspiracy to arrest CM Kejriwal. “Delhi chief minister had spoken about the Adani issue in Delhi Vidhan Sabha. That same day, I had told him that you will be next. Narendra Modi-led Centre is corrupt from head to toe and Kejriwal’s fight against corruption won’t stop due to such notices,” Singh said.
“This notice is a conspiracy to arrest CM Kejriwal. This notice will neither be able to silence the AAP nor Kejriwal,” he said.
The central probe agency has already arrested former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the case. It is alleged that the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the AAP. The policy was later scrapped.
“It was further alleged that irregularities were committed, including modifications in Excise Policy, extending undue favours to the licensees, waiver/reduction in licence fee, the extension of L-1 license without approval etc. “It was also alleged that illegal gains on the count of these acts were diverted to concerned public servants by private parties by making false entries in their books of accounts,” a CBI spokesperson had said after FIR filed on August 17, 2022.
Kamal Nath attempts to broker truce in Rajasthan
To avert a crisis staring the Congress in the face in Rajasthan, where the stand-off between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior leader Sachin Pilot threatens to derail the party’s campaign for Assembly election scheduled at the end of the year, Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath has been roped in to play the mediator.
According to sources, he along with party general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal met Pilot on Thursday evening. The two, it is learnt, heard out Pilot’s side of the story and also proposed a meaty role for him in Delhi as a peace offering. However, this has failed to cut ice with the rebel leader who remains adamant about sticking to his turf in Rajasthan.
It is learnt that several viewpoints were put forward to Pilot, including dire predictions about the party’s electoral performance in Rajasthan. Keeping that in mind, he was told, he should cool his heels in Delhi and wait for a favourable political climate in the State. The new Congress Working Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party, is expected to be formed next month after the Karnataka Assembly election. Pilot has been told that he will get a seat at the high table along with an important responsibility. The offer includes giving Pilot a key role in the screening committee for the Rajasthan election, allowing him a say in the candidate-selection process. But Pilot insisted on a leadership change, which he reminded was promised to him based on the work he did as State president before the 2018 elections.
Pilot, on the other hand, sources said, complained about the “obvious partisan” role played by Rajasthan in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, citing the stern warning issued to him on the eve of his day-long fast. He argued that at a time when the Congress is highlighting corruption charges against the BJP government at Centre and States, his demand for probe into cases against the Vasundhara Raje government cannot be deemed “anti-party”. And the warning came even before his hunger strike, where he said, he did not make any remarks against the party or Gehlot government.
He also pointed out that while the party acted with alacrity to warn him, similar speed was not displayed with the showcause notices issued to three Rajasthan leaders for organising a parallel meeting of Congress Legislative Party on September 25 directly challenging the Delhi leadership’s diktat. It is learnt that, after the meeting, Randhawa was pulled up for being trigger-happy. With both sides maintaining their stance, the meeting didn’t have a concrete result.
Rahul Gandhi starts shifting belongings ahead of vacating official bungalow
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, without waiting for the outcome of the appeal to stay his conviction in a criminal defamation case, started shifting his belongings from his 12, Tughlaq Lane bungalow on April 14.
Following his disqualification from the Lok Sabha after being convicted in the defamation case, Gandhi was asked to vacate 12, Tughlaq Lane premises by April 22.
Two trucks were seen parked outside his residence and the belongings were later shifted to his mother and Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson, Sonia Gandhi’s 10, Janpath residence.
The Congress leader has been occupying the 12, Tughlaq Lane bungalow for 19 years, ever since he became an MP in 2004. Gandhi could have applied for an extension, citing the ongoing legal process as a stay on his conviction and restoration of Lok Sabha membership would entitle him to it.
However, responding to his eviction notice on March 27, Gandhi had said he would vacate his premises. “...thank you for your letter of March 27, 2023, regarding the cancellation of my accommodation at 12 Tughlak Lane. As an elected member of the Lok Sabha over the last four terms, it is the mandate of the people to which I owe the happy memories of my time spent here. Without prejudice to my rights, I will, of course, abide by the details contained in your letter,” he wrote to the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
While neither Gandhi nor the Congress made any official comment, sources said the Congress leader is likely to soon vacate the official bungalow allotted to him. The former Congress chief is said to have seen a few houses but he may also opt to stay with his mother.
A few years ago, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also vacated her Lodhi Road bungalow as she had lost Special Protection Group (SPG) cover and hence wasn’t entitled to a government accommodation.
BJP leader Annamalai says he will approach CBI with plaint against TN CM Stalin for ‘tweaking’ tender 13 years ago
Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai on April 14, 2023, said he would file a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeking an investigation into what he claimed was “tweaking of tender regulations” for phase 1 of the Chennai Metro Rail project 13 years ago to favour the Indian arm of a multi-national company (MNC) for a quid pro quo. At that time Stalin was Deputy Chief Minister.
Strongly denying all allegations, the DMK warned the BJP leader of legal action.
Releasing what he called the “DMKFiles” to “expose” alleged corruption by ruling DMK leaders and their family members at the party headquarters in Chennai, Annamalai claimed ₹200 crore was paid to Stalin through two shell companies for awarding the contract to the MNC. According to him, the tweaked regulation contradicted the Union government’s export-import policy in force then. The MNC MNC concerned was fined $772 million by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 for bribing officials in many countries to secure contracts, he said.
With the Union government holding a stake in the metro rail project, he said he would file a complaint with the CBI on Monday, seeking investigation. Annamalai played a video, listing what he claimed was the net worth of properties, educational institutions, and companies, owned directly or indirectly by the family of Stalin and some prominent DMK leaders including ministers. He claimed the cumulative assets accumulated disproportionately to their income was ₹1.34 lakh crore. He launched the websites, www.dmkfiles.in and www.enmannenmakkal.com, where these details have been hosted.
He alleged Ministers Udhayanidhi Stalin and Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi served as directors in different group companies associated with Noble Steel (NS) on different occasions, before resigning “suspiciously”. Last year the Chief Minister had signed an MoU with NS for ₹ 1,000 crore investment in Tamil Nadu during his visit to the UAE.
He also levelled allegations of impropriety by Stalin’s son-in-law V. Sabareesan and Red Giant Movies, formerly run by Udhayanidhi.
Contending that his fight against corruption will not be restricted to the DMK, without naming the BJP’s ally, AIADMK, he said prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he will expose the corruption of all the parties that ruled Tamil Nadu. “If you do not want me to continue this, go talk to Delhi [leaders] and get me changed [as the president],” he said. He appealed to the public to participate in the padayatra to be launched by the BJP across Tamil Nadu in June, focusing on corruption.
On recent speculations surrounding his absence at the recent event of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Chennai, Annamalai said it was the PM who asked him to focus on Karnataka elections, where he was co-in-charge.
Culture of ‘forcing silence’ and branding people ‘anti-nationals’ will destroy Constitution, says Mallikarjun Kharge
The culture of ‘forcing’ silence and branding people as ‘anti-nationals’ will destroy the Constitution and finish democracy, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said in his message on the 132nd birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar on April 14, 2023.
In his message on Ambedkar Jayanti, Kharge alleged that Parliament has been converted into an arena of combat rather than debate and the finest inheritance of the architect of the Indian Constitution needs constant care and needs preservation.
“The culture of forcing silence on anyone — be it opposition parties, civil society groups, activists, NGOs, judiciary, media and ordinary citizens and branding them as ‘Anti Nationals’ is a dangerous trend that will finish our Democracy and destroy our Constitution,” Kharge said.
The Congress chief also recalled Dr Ambedkar’s concluding speech in the Constituent Assembly in which about he warned against the ills of ‘hero-worship’ in the context of Indian politics.
“But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship,” using this quote of Dr Ambedkar, the Congress chief urged citizens to introspect if they would allow “degradation of our democracy and pave the way for dictatorship or try to preserve and protect the finest ideals of our Constitution makers”.
Paying his tributes, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted, “Equality, liberty, fraternity & justice — the universal values Babasaheb Ambedkar championed, will always remain our guiding light & strength!Tributes to the Architect of India’s Constitution on his birth anniversary.”
“Today we recall perhaps the most highly educated & intellectually gifted of our Founding Fathers. Dr Babasaheb remains iconic & inspirational. [Jawaharlal] Nehru himself said that, ‘no one took greater care and trouble over Constitution making than Dr Ambedkar’. That legacy is under assault now,” Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said on Twitter.
In Brief:
The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh was carrying out encounters with an eye on the polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Friday a day after gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad and an associate were killed by an STF team in Jhansi there. Ahmad, his son and several others are accused in the Umesh Pal murder case in UP, the fallout of which made Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath swear in the Assembly that he would wipe out the mafia there. “Institutions are being finished one after the other and [BJP] governments [at the Centre and UP] are working to destroy the Constitution Babasaheb gave us,” Yadav said.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
