Centre was worried ACB would move against Union minister: Kejriwal
TNN
New Delhi, 18 Jul 2015: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has alleged that the Centre changed the head of the city government’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) because it feared that a case would be filed against a central minister. He, however, denied during an interview with India Today TV that any FIR was to be filed.
Lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung had abruptly replaced SS Yadav with MK Meena as the ACB chief on June 8 on the ground that the ACB, essentially being a police station, comes under the Centre.
"I met senior BJP leaders who were apprehensive that the ACB was in the process of filing an FIR against a senior BJP central minister," Kejriwal said while talking about the controversy over two ACB heads, one appointed by the state and the other by the Centre.
Although Kejriwal claimed that the Centre’s apprehensions were misplaced, BJP pounced on his remark by asking how the Delhi CM could speak so authoritatively about what the ACB was going to do when he claimed that it was independent and autonomous of his government.
"We don’t know what ACB was up to. But Kejriwal’s statement that it was not going to arrest a Union minister is a confession that he had a say in the bureau’s functioning and wanted to use it as a tool of harassment," BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
He also said that the Centre acted to protect the Constitution, which clearly assigns police function in the Capital to the Centre, from being "vandalized".
The appointment of Meena as ACB boss at the expense of AAP’s nominee Yadav came amid thickening suspicion in the Union government about Delhi government’s intent to escalate a Centre-state confrontation. The worry was evident when the Centre, through a gazette notification on May 21, restrained the ACB from acting against any functionary of the Union government.
"The anti-corruption branch police station shall not take any cognizance of offences against officers, employees and functionaries of the central government," the notification said in what was seen as a pre-emptive manoeuvre against a possible strike by ACB which was then under AAP’s nominee Yadav.
In his interview, Kejriwal also accused the Centre of trying to hamper the functioning of the ACB and creating a state of confusion. "The central government is deliberately hindering the functioning of ACB by placing their own nominee. Even our home department is being occupied by Delhi Police and paramilitary forces. An Emergency-like situation is prevailing in Delhi," he said.
Asked whether he had any evidence to support his claim, Kejriwal said the LG had been happy with the functioning of the ACB and his move to appoint "an officer who had a tainted past" was rather sudden. "Not just me, everybody knows that Jung cannot act without directions from the Centre. He is acting at Modi’s behest and he is putting obstacles before the Delhi government. The LG has no authority. I am running the government, the citizens have elected me," he asserted.
Striking an aggressive stance, Kejriwal said the amount of Rs 526 crore had been allocated for publicity because the media was not reporting the "good work" being done by the government. "We have nothing against the media. In fact, we need them to talk about our good work. It is for the first time after Independence that any government has doubled the budget allocation for education and health and it is, therefore, necessary to advertise my achievements and reach out to people. This budget allocation for marketing is just 1.25 % of the total Rs 40,000 crore budget of Delhi. The money will also be utilised to advertise various activities like anti-pollution (measures) and VAT collection programmes in the coming months," he said.
Quite significantly, the CM gave a clean chit to 99% of the media, saying there was only this 1% which had a "setting".
Kejriwal believes that its recent decision to raise VAT on petrol and diesel would not alienate the people of Delhi. In fact, he claimed that if elections were conducted in Delhi right now, AAP would win all 70 seats. "The increase in VAT was a result of a consensus arrived at a meeting of finance ministers of five different states to reduce the differential VAT rates among neighbouring states. Despite the increase, the VAT rate in Delhi is still lower than the rate in other states," he said.
Denying the charge that he was dictatorial, Kejriwal said it was impossible to run such a big party without taking everyone along. He, however, could not refrain from taking potshots at former colleague Yogendra Yadav who, along with three other senior members, was thrown out of the party earlier this year. When asked about open rebellion by at least two MPs in Punjab, Kejriwal said Dharamvir Gandhi, the most vocal critic of the CM, was a good friend of Yadav and there was no revolt in the party. He also insinuated that AAP had contested 400 plus seats in the Lok Sabha elections on Yadav’s advise but now planned to contest the Punjab elections for the time being. "I don’t have any national ambition. I just want to rid this country of corruption," he said.
Kejriwal added that the decision to remove Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from the party was taken by the parliamentary affairs committee, national council and national executive. "It will be nice if they could come back to the party at some point. We should take everyone along," he said when pressed to say if he would like them to return to the party.
The government has been in the line of fire in the cases of at least two MLAs who are in judicial custody over charges of forgery and fraud. One involved the former law minister, Jitender Singh Tomar, who the CM had defended staunchly before his arrest. "I was misled by Tomar, and the day he was arrested, I asked him to resign," said Kejriwal. However, he also pointed a finger at BJP for not taking action against Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje in the Lalitgate case and Shivraj Chouhan in the Vyapam case. He refused to respond to the allegation that there were 21 AAP MLAs who had charges against them, including Manoj Kumar who is in jail in a land-grabbing case. "Delhi Police is working at the behest of PM Narendra Modi and AAP MLAs are the victims of a ’pick and chose policy’ of the Modi government," he alleged.
In fact, he alleged that the Centre was against ACB trying any police personnel. "These people want that if a thulla (cop) is caught demanding money from the street vendors, we should not try him," he said. His reference to cops as thullas has upset police commissioner BS Bassi who described it as "unfortunate".