Cabinet Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Friday challenged the accusations levelled against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), saying that there is a direct link between donations received by the BJP in the form of electoral bonds from Aurobindo Pharma and the company’s director, P. Sharath Reddy, who was arrested by the ED in the excise policy case, turning into an approver.
Addressing a press conference, the senior AAP leader said that Mr. Reddy donated ₹5 crore in electoral bonds five days after his arrest in November 2022. He then became an approver in the case in June 2023, the Minister alleged. “A few months after he turned approver, Aurobindo Pharma donated another ₹25 crore in electoral bonds to the BJP. It is not Mr. Kejriwal who has received illegal money, but the BJP, in the form of electoral bonds,” the Minister said.
He added that all the evidence is publicly available and that it has also been established in court that Mr. Reddy donated ₹25 crore to the BJP in the form of electoral bonds, thus proving that the money trail “has gone to the treasury of the BJP” and not AAP.
