The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress on Tuesday welcomed Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena’s order asking the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to pay ₹97.14 crore that was allegedly spent on political promotion in the guise of government advertisements. However, AAP termed it as another “love letter” from the L-G and said he had passed an “illegal order” outside his jurisdiction.
The three political parties entered a war of words after the L-G’s order in which he asked the Chief Secretary to implement a 2016 order of the Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA), a three-member body formed by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the directions of the Supreme Court.
The CCRGA, had in September 2016, found various Delhi government advertisements in violation of the SC guidelines on government advertising and had asked the Directorate of Information and Publicity to recover the amount spent on those advertisements from AAP.
Hailing the L-G’s order, Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva said, “Today they [AAP] are calling the L-G’s order another ‘love letter’ to reduce the seriousness of the matter, but the truth is that this is a white paper of the Kejriwal government’s corruption.”
‘Pay ₹675 crore’
Congress leader Ajay Maken said it was he who had first raised the matter in 2016 with the CCRGA and also approached the Delhi High Court, which directed the panel to look into the Delhi government’s advertisements. He, however, said ₹675 crore should be recovered from AAP instead of ₹97 crore. Mr. Maken had also written to the L-G on October 4, requesting him to implement the CCRGA’s order and recover the money from AAP.
Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, alleged that the AAP government had spent “more than ₹2,000 crore” on advertisements in the past seven years.
He also demanded a CBI inquiry into the “biggest advertisement scam of the country”.
He also said, “On our demand, L-G Vinai Kumar Saxena asked the Directorate of Vigilance to investigate the matter. After the vigilance report, the L-G has asked the Chief Secretary to recover this amount.”
‘Baseless arguments’
AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that Mr. Saxena is now using “baseless arguments raised by BJP spokespersons”.
“BJP’s State governments spent ₹22,000 crore on advertisements, why doesn’t J.P. Nadda step forward and tell when the BJP will return ₹22,000 crore to the exchequer? There are no BJP-ruled States whose advertisements are not published in Delhi’s newspaper. Let them [the BJP] come forward and pay ₹22,000 crore and then we will pay ₹97 crore,” Mr. Bharadwaj said.
Published - December 21, 2022 12:53 am IST
