Kejriwal should have checked Kumar’s antecedents: Hazare

Instead of fending off allegations now, Kejriwal should have checked his background earlier, the social activist said.

Social activist Anna Hazare. File photo

Veteran anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare on Wednesday admonished his former protégé, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader for surrounding himself with men of dubious reputation following allegations of corruption levelled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Mr. Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary, Rajender Kumar.

“As Arvind has been fighting against corruption, I have always adviced him that he ought to surround himself with people of ‘strong character’. Before appointing someone as Principal Secretary, he should have checked his [ Mr.Kumar’s] background,” the septuagenarian activist told reporters at his native village, Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.

At the same time he hit out against the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre, remarking that “the incident of alleged corruption” did not take place during Mr. Kejriwal’s tenure and quesioned the BJP’s suspiciously ‘late timing’ in directing the CBI to raid Mr. Kumar’s ofices now.

The CBI on Tuesday conducted had raided Mr. Kumar’s office regarding ‘shady’ transactions in his earlier capacities.

“ >Both the BJP and the AAP are now playing blame games over the CBI raid>. But my question is over the timing of this entire incident. Action should have been taken the moment the problem was discovered,”said the anti-corruption crusader.

“The BJP did nothing about this case in the last 18 months. Action [against Rajendra Kumar] ought to have taken right then,” said Mr. Hazare, who had desisted from attend Mr. Kejriwal’s swearing-in ceremony in Delhi earlier this year on grounds that he would have nothing to do with ‘politics’.

In that vein, Mr. Hazare made it clear that he had no intention of intervening in the vicious slanging match between the Delhi government and the BJP governemnt at the Centre.

In March this year, the 77-year-old activist had maintained a studied silence by intransigently refusing to comment on the ousting of AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from the party they founded and their raging battle with Mr. Kejriwal.

Before they parted ways, all were important members of Mr. Hazare’s India Against Corruption (IAC) movement which culminated in the draft Jan Lokpal Bill which empowers the proposed ombudsman to act against any public servant in the national capital, including those of the Centre.