Reacting strongly to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s allegations of accepting hawala money as party funds, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday challenged Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to take legal action against him if he was found guilty.
“I challenge the Finance Minister to put me in jail if my party is found guilty of accepting money in an illegal manner,” Mr. Kejriwal said at a public meeting in East Delhi's Trilokpuri constituency.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Jaitley said the AAP was caught “red-handed” as it had received funds through “round-tripping” from companies which did not have any business and accused the party of adopting “diversionary tactics” to deflect attention.
Addressing a large gathering, Mr. Kejriwal accused the BJP-led Central government of making life “difficult for the poor people” and “favouring only the rich”.
“In the last nine months, the BJP government has made everything expensive -- milk, vegetables, groceries, gas cylinders, electricity. The common man is unable to lead a normal life,” he said.
Taking up the issue of slums in the constituency, Mr. Kejriwal said: “The BJP government has removed many slums during its tenure. Their plan is to clear slums and give the land to industrialists. They want all slum dwellers to leave Delhi.” “There are five lakh jhuggis in Delhi. If the AAP comes to power, we will construct five lakh permanent houses in place of the jhuggis,” he added. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Jan Dhan Yojana, one of his flagship schemes, Mr. Kejriwal said the poor had been given bank accounts, but they had no money to deposit in them as black money had not been recovered.
