Facing ED scrutiny, Delhi minister Raaj Kumar Anand quits, says AAP mired in graft, no right to rule

AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh told reporters that Anand had been summoned by the ED on April 12. This was later confirmed by ED sources.

Anand was earlier under the scanner of the ED, which conducted searches at premises linked to him in November last year in a suspected money laundering case related to alleged evasion of Customs duty and “hawala payments to China”.

Anand, who represents the reserved seat of Patel Nagar, is the first AAP minister to resign after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest in the excise policy case on March 21.

As Anand announced his surprise decision at a press conference on Wednesday, seated next to him was Ratnesh Gupta, a close aide of jailed AAP leader and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

“Gupta’s presence there is concerning. He was very close to Manishji, but had been keeping his distance from the party for quite some time,” said an AAP leader. In fact, ahead of the 2015 Assembly elections, Gupta had filed his nomination papers from Sisodia’s constituency (Patparganj) as the party’s shadow candidate.

Gupta did not respond to calls and text messages.

“The AAP was born out of a movement against corruption but today this party is mired in the same quicksand of graft… It has become impossible for me to continue working as part of this government… I do not want my name to be added to such corrupt actions,” Anand said at the press conference.

#WATCH | Delhi Social Welfare Minister Raaj Kumar Anand resigns from his post as minister and also from Aam Aadmi Party pic.twitter.com/QF52GyjhiW

— ANI (@ANI) April 10, 2024

Citing the Delhi High Court order from Tuesday, he said the AAP did not have the “moral right to continue in government any longer”. “I was feeling suffocated for some time… Till yesterday, it felt as if we (the AAP) were being falsely implicated, but the (Delhi) High Court’s decision yesterday made me realise that there is certainly something wrong somewhere,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court dismissed Kejriwal’s plea against his arrest, noting that there was “sufficient material” with the ED for his arrest and remand. The single-judge bench said the material reveals that Kejriwal “allegedly conspired with other persons and was involved in the formulation of Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22, in the process of demanding kickbacks from the South Group, as well as in generation, use and concealment of proceeds of crime.”

“I entered politics when Arvind Kejriwal said that if politics changes, the country will change. Today, I say with much regret that politics did not change but political leaders did,” said Anand.

Accusing the AAP of ignoring the Dalit community, he said: “They display Babasaheb’s (B R Ambedkar) photograph at every press conference and government office, but don’t follow his ideals… Reservation is mandated by law, but when it comes to actual representation, not a single (AAP) MP is Dalit or from the backward community.”

Responding to Anand’s resignation, Sanjay Singh, who was released on bail last week in the excise policy case, accused the BJP of using the ED and CBI to “break our ministers and MLAs”. “It is agnipariksha (trial by fire) of AAP ministers and MLAs,” he said.

Delhi’s Health and Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that Anand may have been threatened to quit AAP. “Time and again we said that the intention behind arresting Arvind Kejriwal was to break the party and governments of Delhi and Punjab… We have to be like Sanjay Singh, Satyendar Jain and Manish Sisodia, not Raaj Kumar Anand…We have sympathy for him because he got scared, but we will not become like him,” he said.

Singh said the BJP called Anand corrupt “when a raid was conducted against him by the ED, but now the party will welcome him into its fold with garlands”.

Speaking to The Indian Express, another senior AAP leader said a section of the party was of the opinion that there could be more exits. “Those with money are easier to target as compared to people like Sanjay Singh, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Atishi who have negligible assets of their own… It is easier to allege anything against business people, real or imagined, regarding black money or tax evasion… more exits may happen now,” the party leader said.

Meanwhile, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said Anand’s resignation was “the beginning of the end of a story of deceit”. “Anand… has answered the call of his conscience and resigned from the government today,” he said.

A first-time MLA from Patel Nagar, Anand has a leather and rexine business, as well as some commercial real-estate holdings. After searches at premises linked to him last November, the ED had said in a statement: “The ED initiated the investigation on the basis of a prosecution complaint filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) against Anand and other connected persons/ entities for commission of offences under various sections of the Customs Act. As per the complaint, Anand made hawala payments to China and evaded Customs duty amounting to about Rs 7 crore on various imports.” It had claimed to have recovered evidence relating to unaccounted business investments and hawala payments sent to China in 2023.

Anand’s wife, Veena, had won the seat on an AAP ticket in 2013. In 2015, she contested as an Independent, and lost to the AAP’s Hazari Lal Chauhan.

This is the second time that Anand has resigned from the AAP. A senior AAP leader said Anand had resigned in 2015 when he could not get the party ticket for the Assembly elections. He and his wife then joined Yogendra Yadav’s Swaraj Abhiyan. In 2019, Anand returned to the AAP, and was fielded as the party’s candidate from Patel Nagar the following year.