: One month with the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) under his control is what Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it would take to investigate allegations of corruption by the erstwhile-Congress government as well as the BJP-ruled municipalities.
About a year ago, Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung had appointed Joint Commissioner of Police Mukesh Kumar Meena as the chief of the anti-graft body, against the wishes of the Aam Aadmi Party government.
Speaking on day two of a special session of the Delhi Assembly on Friday, the CM said that with the ACB acting on directions from the Centre, through Mr. Jung, the government had not been able to get the alleged scams probed.
He was answering to Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta’s allegation that the AAP government had remained mum on an alleged Rs. 400 crore scam in hiring water tankers by Sheila Dikshit’s Congress government.
‘Your wife will be in jail’
Hitting back, Mr. Kejriwal said: “If the ACB was with us, Mr. Gupta’s wife would be in jail; 95 per cent of the councillors in the municipal corporations would be in jail; and half the former MLAs of the Congress and the BJP would be behind bars.”
Mr. Gupta’s wife, Dr. Shobha Vijender, is a councillor in the North Delhi Municipal Corporation and has been recently accused of handing out pensions to ineligible people.
Earlier in the session, which was called to discussed the functioning of the corporations, Mr. Kejriwal told Mr. Gupta to approach the ACB and the Central Bureau of Investigation to have the alleged tanker scam probed.
“The ACB and the CBI are under you [the BJP]. You give me the fact-finding team’s report on the tanker scam and I’ll give you a report on the pension scam done by you wife,” Mr. Kejriwal said to the Leader of the Opposition.
The Chief Minister said that an order by the Central Information Commission had asked Dr. Vijender to explain why she had recommended someone who was ineligible for the social welfare pension to the corporation as well as the public.
“The CIC has asked why a prosecution should not be initiated against Mr. Gupta’s wife,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
CM says scams not being probed as
ACB is acting on directions of the Centre, through L-G
