Two days after the Arvind Kejriwal government issued a statement providing a break-up of the officers arrested by its Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday challenged the State Government to make public the details (names and designations) of these officials. The BJP has alleged that many of them are not even ‘officers’.
“The government claims to have arrested 12 Excise Department officers. We cross-checked and found that the list includes two grade III head clerks and two class IV employees. The other eight arrested are actually common traders i.e. Excise licensees and their employees,” said Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay. “Similarly, on cross checking the list of nine arrests in Delhi Jal Board, it was found that four of them are private Jal Board contractors,” Mr. Upadhyay added.
The BJP leader alleged that it is was clear that the claim of 35 officers being arrested on corruption charges was a farce. He said the Chief Minister should either make the details public or seek an apology for wasting public money on advertisements making tall claims of its anti-graft drive.
“We challenge Chief Minister Kejriwal to tell Delhi the names of 35 arrested government officers along with their posts, the charge they held and the date of arrest, or else the party would hold massive demonstration against him,” he added. The BJP leader also slammed AAP for labelling the BJP-ruled MCDs as the most corrupt government agency, despite the fact that the maximum people shown as arrested by ACB work with the Delhi Government.
“Only two of the 35 people ACB claims to have arrested are from the MCD, while one is from the Delhi Police. The remaining 33 are from some or the other arm of the AAP government. But still they term MCDs as corrupt,” said Mr. Upadhyay.
