Kejriwal lashes out at Centre after CBI raids his office

He also called the Prime Minister names using words like “coward” and “psychopath” which the BJP said was “disgraceful” and warranted an immediate apology.

As the AAP and the Centre traded charges inside and outside the House — the Trinamool Congress was the first to rally behind AAP and Mamata Banerjee too mentioned the “shocking” Delhi raid in a speech near Malda — Kejriwal said he was the target of the CBI raid and Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar was just an “excuse”.

In Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rejected Kejriwal’s allegation even as the Centre invited flak for “going after Opposition-ruled states”.

Announcing “CBI raids my office” via a tweet, Kejriwal attacked the Prime Minister: “I’m telling you Modiji, you may have scared others but I’m not among those who can be intimidated. I’ll fight till my last breath.”

“When Modi cudn’t handle me politically, he resorts to this cowardice. Modi is a coward and psychopath,” he tweeted.

The BJP condemned his “disgraceful” remarks and demanded an apology. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad rejected Kejriwal’s claim that CBI raided his office, saying it was not even “touched” by the agency.

“A textbook case of corruption is being given political colour for extraneous reasons… The use of such expressions for our popular Prime Minister is totally uncalled for, unwarranted, disgraceful and condemnable,” he said.

Kejriwal also targeted Jaitley: “FM lied in Parliament. My own office files are being looked into to get some evidence against me. Rajender is an excuse”.

Speaking to reporters later, he claimed the CBI was looking for an inquiry committee file relating to Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) that “traps” Jaitley.

“If the raid was about some contracts allegedly given by Rajendra Kumar in different capacities during the Sheila Dikshit government in departments like Education, VAT and IT, the raids should have been conducted in the record rooms of those departments where the files related to those contracts must be lying.”

“Instead those departments were not raided because the CBI never intended to investigate the cases that it is using as a pretext to conduct raids,” he said.

“It has become necessary to reveal that why did the CBI come to my office today and which was the file they were looking for. Yeh file hai DDCA ka file jiske andar Arun Jaitley phas rahe hain (This is the DDCA file under which Arun Jaitley is getting trapped),” he claimed.

Kejriwal said the committee tasked to probe alleged irregularities in DDCA had submitted its report.

“Jaitley was the DDCA president for many years and I had set up a committee to probe all the corruption that had taken place during his tenure. The committee has submitted its report and a commission of inquiry was to be set up over it, and a file pertaining to it was in my office,” he alleged.

Jaitley dismissed the allegations against him as “rubbish”: “His (Kejriwal’s) morning statement appeared to be prima facie incorrect, but the evening one seems to be absolute rubbish. And I don’t think I need to respond to rubbish.”

Later, at an event organised by the AAP trade wing, Kejriwal said: “The Modi wave ended in Delhi, where they not only lost but were washed out. I met several BJP leaders in the past few months who have told me that Modiji could not forget the debacle. His blood boils at the mention of my name. So he has resorted to revenge now and if he has his way he will finish off AAP.”