Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal skipped the Enforcement Directorate’s summons on Thursday and went to attend the party’s roadshow in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. The ED hasd summoned Kejriwal in the alleged excise police scam.
Earlier in the day, Kejriwal wrote to the investigating agency calling their summons “illegal and politically motivated”.
In his letter to ED Assistant Director, Kejriwal wrote: “The said summons is not clear as to the capacity in which I am being summoned i.e. as a witness or a suspect in the above-mentioned case… (It) does not specify whether I am being summoned as an individual or in my official capacity as Chief Minister of Delhi or as National Convenor of AAP and appears to be in the nature of a fishing and roving inquiry.”
Alleging that the summons was issued at the behest of the BJP, Kejriwal said, “The said summons appear to be motivated and issued for extraneous considerations. Simultaneous to the summons, in the afternoon of 30.10.2023, BJP leaders started making statements that soon I would be summoned and arrested. By the evening of that day, I received your summons”.
Kejriwal was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case in April, and the AAP has expressed its apprehension that Kejriwal would be the first to be arrested as part of the BJP’s alleged plot to target top INDIA alliance leaders ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Meanwhile, multiple teams of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are conducting searches in 10 places, including the house of Social Welfare Minister Raaj Kumar Anand in North Delhi’s Civil Lines area.
AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj said. “Even during the British era, the police needed search warrants to enter people’s homes because even they knew that if the police and agencies were given a free hand it would lead to chaos.”
He added, “Today, you don’t need a warrant; the ED’s officers themselves decide where they want to go…when will the agency visit BJP leaders accused of scams? This is all happening as per a plan to intimidate opposition leaders before 2024.”
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