After poll setback in Delhi, ED raids on AAP’s Saurabh Bharadwaj shake up party

Atishi, Leader of Opposition at the Delhi Assembly and a key face of the party in the Capital, called a press conference to denounce the raid.

“This is a 100% bogus raid,” she said. “When the decision to build these hospitals was taken, Saurabh Bharadwaj was not even the Health Minister. He became Health Minister two years later. Raiding his house for these decisions is as absurd as raiding the PM’s house for the 2G scam or the Commonwealth Games scam that had taken place before his term in office.”

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said in a post on X, “AAP is being targeted because it has been the strongest voice against the Modi government’s wrong policies and corrupt practices. The Modi government wants to silence our voice, but that will never happen.”

Delhi BJP President, Virendra Sachdeva, responded: “We have said repeatedly that Delhi’s development has been hindered in the last 11 years and people have been misled. The ED raids against Saurabh Bharadwaj prove our allegations.”

Atishi further alleged that the exercise was politically motivated and sought to link the raids to Modi’s Delhi University degree. “Why is Delhi University hiding that the PM was once its student? When other leaders became chief ministers, DU celebrated them as alumni. But in Modi ji’s case, the university is silent. The whole country is talking about this — so, to divert attention, raids are being ordered against AAP leaders,” she alleged.

She was referring to Monday’s Delhi High Court judgment that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree need not be disclosed to RTI applicants as it is personal information.

Calling it part of a “larger pattern of harassment”, Atishi cited the case of former health minister Satyendar Jain, who was jailed for months before being granted bail. “Not a single penny of corruption money has ever been found with AAP leaders. Yet these agencies keep conducting raids. The truth is, investigative agencies are being weaponised to silence AAP and its leaders,” she claimed.

She added: “We want to tell Modi ji and the BJP that no matter how many raids are carried out, AAP will never be scared, nor will we ever indulge in corruption. Not even a penny has been found with any of our leaders in the past, and not a penny will ever be found in the future.”
The ED action against Bharadwaj (45) stems from an FIR registered by Delhi’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) on June 26, which had alleged cost escalations and corruption in the construction of hospitals across Delhi.

The corruption allegations date back to August 2024, when BJP MLA Vijender Gupta — now the Speaker of the Delhi Assembly — filed a complaint with the ACB, accusing the then AAP government of mismanaging hospital projects. His complaint had flagged cost escalations and irregularities in the construction of 24 hospital projects — 11 greenfield and 13 brownfield — worth Rs 5,590 crore.

This is the first time that Bharadwaj, who took over the reins of the party’s Delhi unit in March, has been accused of corruption by an agency. Until now, he has enjoyed a clean image and has been known as a “media-savvy troubleshooter” and a “policy-focused leader” in the AAP circles.

For the AAP, the raids carry political weight. With the party being the principal Opposition in Delhi now, Bharadwaj’s task has been cut out, trying to rally the party workers and galvanise them to take on the BJP government effectively.

With Bharadwaj facing a corruption probe, however, the morale of the Delhi AAP’s rank and file is likely to be dampened further.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Congress — AAP’s former poll ally — said probe agencies are acting under political pressure.

Its president, Devender Yadav, commented on the raid and said, “I believe that if there are any allegations, then there should be a free and fair probe. But what we have been seeing in the past 11 years is that these agencies are being used as political weapons. Many leaders have such allegations against them… I can’t comment on whether Bharadwaj is innocent or not, but these agencies are definitely under political pressure.”

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