Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was locked out of his office on Tuesday morning as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials raided the Delhi Secretariat. The CBI sleuths, who were there since 8:30 a.m., sealed the entire third floor of the building. Even before the CM could reach his office, his staff informed him of the raid taking place.
At 10:13 a.m., Mr. Kejriwal through social media announced that Chief Minister’s Office was raided. “CBI raids my office,” he tweeted. Delhi CM, rattled by the raid, launched an attack on the Centre through a series of tweets and blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi behind the raid. He went a step further and called Mr. Modi, “coward and psychopath.”
The office remained out of bounds and no file was cleared by the CM on Tuesday. Even the files kept inside his office weren’t allowed to be taken out. By noon, all AAP ministers and leaders went to deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia’s residence. A meeting was convened and with no clarity on why the CBI was raiding his office, AAP leaders started calling up officials to find out about the cases against Principal Secretary, Rajendra Kumar. “CM wasn’t informed about the raid in advance. We started calling up officials to find out what was happening. We were told by CMO staff that the CBI officials asked them to give them a copy of some of the files kept in Mr Kejriwal’s office, including the file pertaining to DDCA,” said an AAP leader.
In the meantime, the BJP attacked the Delhi CM for using words like ‘coward and psychopath’ for the PM. Non-BJP leaders, expressing solidarity with the AAP leader, uttered words of condemnation. “Sealing of a Chief Minister’s office is unprecedented. I am shocked [sic]” Mamata Banerjee tweeted. The tech savvy Delhi CM replied, “Mamata Di. This is undeclared emergency [sic].”
Around 4 p.m., deputy CM held a press conference at his residence while the AAP team along with Mr. Kejriwal was still doing research on the issue. An hour and a half later, Mr Kejriwal called another press conference at the same venue. Summarising the raid, he said, “ Rajendra toh bahana hai, Kejriwal nishana hai” (Rajendra Kumar is just an excuse, Arvind Kejriwal is the target)
He gave a new twist to the CBI raid episode and claimed that it was conducted to shield Arun Jaitley in the DDCA scam. Even after the press conference, Mr. Kejriwal kept the debate going on social media. “After I raised question on why CBI did not raid those departments where those tender files are there, Now CBI has gone to raid IT dept. [sic]”
AAP Chief says, Rajendra Kumar just an excuse, Arvind Kejriwal
the target
