End of Kejriwal’s Politics
On 3 April, during the hearing with regard to Arvind Kejriwal’s plea for interim relief, the ED stated that Kejriwal was “totally uncooperative”, “evasive”, gave “misleading replies” and “concealed information” during his questioning. Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju averred that there is “categorical finding that there has been money laundering” and that Kejriwal is “involved personally.”
Once embarking his politics through magnifying and bringing the corruption in government machinery to public’s notice; Kejriwal now struggles to walk on the paths the public once viewed him leading over.
Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 over the Liquor Policy corruption case and is currently lodged in Tihar jail. In the latest hearing of Delhi Court on Monday, 15, the court extended his judicial custody till 23 April in the money laundering case connected to the now scrapped liquor policy.
Decoding the liquor policy scam
In 2021, the AAP government in Delhi promulgated a new liquor policy, Delhi’s Excise Policy (2021-22). This new policy was ostensibly executed to mitigate government control of selling liquor and hand over the retailing to private vendors to enhance the consumer experience. The profit margins, however, that this new policy would generate were incredibly high, leading to accusations of corruption and money laundering.
Delhi Congress President Chaudhary Anil Kumar was one of the first to file a complaint with the Delhi police in 2022 alleging a multi-crore scam. A series of similar complaints prompted a report by the Chief Secretary of Delhi and eventually led to the CBI and ED getting involved. Therefore, for the Congress Party to spread foul narratives today, post Kejriwal’s arrest is rank hypocrisy and a U-turn that smells of political expediency at its worst.
On 3 April, during the hearing with regard to Arvind Kejriwal’s plea for interim relief, the ED stated that Kejriwal was “totally uncooperative”, “evasive”, gave “misleading replies” and “concealed information” during his questioning. Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju averred that there is “categorical finding that there has been money laundering” and that Kejriwal is “involved personally.”
The ASG further contended that a “large number of phones and electronic devices have been destroyed.... All this cash payment to large number of people, vendors, advertisers and workers was done in cash. That cash is not accounted for. It may be Rs 100 crore or little less. The money trail is there. We have located the money trail…….We have WhatsApp chats we have hawala operators statements. It’s not as if we are shooting in the dark. We have large amount of Income Tax data… We have established, evidence shows that the kickbacks were used for election campaign of AAP in Goa. So, the AAP is beneficiary because it used the money.”
The ED arguments appear to have convinced the judiciary.
On 9 April, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the Delhi High Court, while dismissing Kejriwals’s petition challenging his arrest, indicated that there was “enough material” to justify his arrest and that the remand was “not illegal.”
It won’t be an early statement, to embark that the Kejriwal has started loosing his land over politics , and may soon be rewarded by the public for his crafty masquerade of ‘Messiah’, and being a ‘Thug’ in acts. The exposure of the corruption marks beginning of the end of Kejriwal’s political career which was established on the deeds of falsehood.
Article by
Kewali Kabir
Younginker
Guna, Madhyapradesh
