Your bias apparent: Arvind Kejriwal to ED; excuses, says agency

Kejriwal, alongside Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and MPs Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak, went to Goa on Thursday evening for three days to meet party workers. Earlier in the day, he attended a government schools award function.

In response to ED’s communication, accompanied by the fourth summons, which, it is learnt, said that Kejriwal was giving excuses and had no intention to cooperate, the Delhi CM said that he had responded to each summons and was ready to cooperate.

An Aam Aadmi Party source said that Kejriwal, in his latest response, said that ED had made baseless accusations against him. “The CM wrote that the language and tenor of ED’s communication… demonstrates arbitrary and biased approach… he wrote that ED’s bias and prejudice against him were apparent from innuendos hurled at him,” the source said.

“The CM wrote that he had reiterated in his responses that the processes and summons must be in accordance with law and that it was a matter of record that vague and non-specific summons have been declared invalid and quashed by courts of law,” he added. Kejriwal also said that he objects to the ED’s usage of terms like “excuse”, “extraneous reasons”, and “intentionally disobeying summons”, sources said.

He also referred to his appearance before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for questioning in the excise policy case in April to show that he was a “law-abiding citizen”, an AAP leader said.

In his response, Kejriwal also explained, again, why he was unable to appear before ED on the past three occasions — including the election campaign in the five states where assembly elections were held in November, Rajya Sabha elections and now, the preparation for the Delhi budget, which is going to be tabled in the Assembly in February.

He also reiterated that the ED has still not clarified the context in which he is being called — as an accused or a witness.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), meanwhile, said that Kejriwal’s refusal to go for questioning showed that he knew his future was dark.

“Observing that Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh couldn’t get bail, Arvind Kejriwal has realised that his future is in the dark. He has realised that he will have to answer the people,” BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said. Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said the way the Delhi Chief Minister was “fearing, avoiding and hiding” from the ED and had again travelled out of the city on Thursday gave reason to believe that he was “running away from the investigation.”

“The Chief Minister’s evasion of the fourth ED summons reflects his own admission of involvement in the liquor scam…It seems Arvind Kejriwal knows that the investigation conducted by ED has established that he is the main brain behind the liquor scam as well as its beneficiary,” Sachdeva alleged.