NEW DELHI: Both the BJP and AAP engaged in war of words after ACB’s FIR against Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain. The BJP demanded that the Anti-Corruption Branch investigate not only the roles of Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain in the classroom scam, but also the role of former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal himself.
The AAP, however, said “it is clear now that the BJP government is incapable of doing any real work. All they know is to file one baseless case after another against Manish Sisodia and other AAP leaders.”
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva stated, “Today (Wednesday) marks a decisive moment in the fight of Delhi’s citizens against the corruption of the Aam Aadmi Party and its outgoing government.”
“The ACB has registered an FIR and initiated an investigation against former ministers Sisodia and Jain, who are accused of a scam in classroom construction under the guise of educational and infrastructure reform.” He said that soon as Kejriwal came to power in 2015, he began laying the foundation for various “corrupt practices and scams.” At that very time, the BJP organisation started raising its voice against these irregularities. The Delhi BJP president noted that in 2015-16, the Kejriwal government allocated a budget of Rs 2,892 crore for the construction of 12,748 classrooms in government schools.
This allocation meant that the cost of constructing a single classroom came out to approximately Rs 24.86 lakh, whereas, according to CPWD manual estimates, the construction cost should have been around Rs 5 lakh per classroom.
The AAP leaders said, “All they know is to file one baseless case after another against Manish Sisodia and other AAP leaders. At this rate, one shouldn’t be surprised if BJP’s agencies register a case tomorrow saying, ‘Why was Sisodia sitting on a government chair?’ or ‘Why did he forget to put a comma or a full stop in an official document?’ That’s the level of absurdity this has reached.”
The opposition party said that the BJP has no intention of doing any meaningful governance for the coming 5 years. “They’re only interested in theatrics. One day it’s a case, the next a raid. It is no coincidence that as soon as Durgesh Pathak is appointed as Sah-Prabhari of Gujarat, an FIR is registered against him and his house is raided. The moment Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain are given roles in Punjab, fresh FIRs appear against them.”
“This is pure political vendetta. It’s a deliberate attempt to intimidate and paralyse the AAP. The AAP does not fear their intimidation tactics, their bogus FIRs or their ED-CBI witch hunts,” the party leaders said.