‘ED, CD, or BD’: Bhagwant Mann slams Centre after raids on Punjab Minister Sanjeev Arora

Referring to the ED raid on Ashok Mittal, he said, “He runs Lovely Professional University, which has 40,000 students from more than 35 countries. Just because he is an AAP MP, he has suddenly been targeted. Today, the ED is raiding the residence of Cabinet minister Sanjeev Arora. He had defeated the BJP badly in the Ludhiana Assembly by-election. Now he, too, has been tainted.”

The chief minister alleged that the BJP has begun “preparing for the 2027 Assembly elections”. “Their policy is to send ED, Income Tax notices, and intimidate people. They cannot find 117 leaders to contest all seats. So they are telling people either not to contest or to go through their ‘washing machine’. This is a dangerous trend. Democracy is being murdered. We strongly condemn it,” he added.

He also alleged that ED targets only non-BJP governments and Opposition parties.

“Nothing ever comes out of these cases anyway. Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia were acquitted. The cases were so weak that charges could not even be framed. Their only aim is to put leaders in jail till the elections are over. If someone gets scared and joins them after going through their ‘washing machine’, then he is declared clean. Is this a democracy? This is a dictatorship.”

Taking a dig at Bihar, he said, “They made Samrat Chaudhary the Chief Minister of Bihar, a person who has seven murder cases against him and has even forged his date of birth. Isn’t this jungle raj in Bihar now?”

Mann accused the BJP of making a mockery of democracy, “Our country is called the world’s largest democracy, where people are supposed to choose their own government. AAP has become a national party in just 10 years, and that is why we are being targeted”.

“The BJP thinks they can manage the Congress through some understanding. They don’t want any third front to emerge. That is why they falsely implicated our Delhi leaders in the liquor scam. A sitting Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, was sent to jail. Our deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh were also jailed. Our policymakers and party workers were all intimidated and asked to join the BJP, failing which they would face trouble.”

“This politics of intimidation and coercion is happening across the country. In West Bengal, they replaced all officers, including the DGP. They don’t win elections by winning people’s hearts. They win through ED, CBI, Election Commission and other agencies that can scare people,” he said.