New Delhi: BJP Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal on Wednesday launched a fresh and scathing attack on former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, accusing him of running a “shop of corruption” in the national capital for nearly a decade and alleging that corruption was carried out through his ministers.
Maliwal’s remarks came a day after former Delhi Minister Satyendar Kumar Jain and former Delhi Jal Board (DJB) CEO Udit Prakash Rai, an IAS officer, were among six people arrested by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) in connection with an alleged corruption and tender-manipulation case related to the augmentation and upgradation of sewage treatment plants (STPs) in the national capital.
Speaking on the matter, Maliwal alleged that several corruption cases surfaced during Kejriwal’s tenure as Delhi Chief Minister, including the alleged classroom construction scam and liquor policy case. She claimed that the AAP chief deliberately kept himself away from holding any ministry so that responsibility for alleged wrongdoing could be placed on his ministers.
“In the last 10 years in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal ran a shop of corruption. Whether it was the classroom construction scam in schools, the liquor scam, or countless other scams — they had done it all. Kejriwal worked very cleverly. During his 10 years as Chief Minister, he never took charge of any ministry. His modus operandi was clear: he got corruption done through his ministers, and as soon as a minister was exposed, he would shift the entire blame onto that minister. He did this for 10 years in Delhi,” Maliwal said.
Calling the latest sewage treatment plant case involving the Delhi Jal Board a “very serious scam”, the BJP MP said the issue was directly linked to efforts to clean the Yamuna. She stressed that the functioning of STPs was crucial for the city’s efforts to reduce pollution in the river.
“Kejriwal thought that the Yamuna would not bring votes, so why not make money out of it? That is why he got this corruption done,” she added.
Maliwal also expanded her attack to Punjab, alleging that after the Aam Aadmi Party’s tenure in Delhi ended, Kejriwal effectively shifted the alleged model of corruption to the neighbouring state.
The Rajya Sabha member asserted, “As soon as Kejriwal’s corruption shop ended in Delhi, he opened the same big corruption malls in Punjab. Satyendar Jain is working as a collection agent for the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab. He is openly extorting money from builders and real estate developers. If that is not true, then why has he been given a more luxurious bungalow in Chandigarh than ministers? Why is bungalow number 926 in Sector 36 allotted to him when he is just an ex-MLA from Delhi?”
Maliwal also described the alleged corruption cases as a movie and claimed that the former Delhi Chief Minister was responsible for directing the entire operation.
“There is a movie of Arvind Kejriwal named ‘Bhrashtachar ki Kitab — Delhi to Punjab’. The writer, director, producer, and choreographer of this movie is Kejriwal. The people who are now being arrested, like Satyendar Jain, are just actors in that movie. The actual action has been directed by Kejriwal, and action should be taken against him,” she said.
“Arvind Kejriwal himself spent so many days in jail, but did he not run the government? He ran the entire government from jail. And this corruption is very serious because, as I said, it is related to the cleaning of the Yamuna. How many sewage treatment plants did these people build, and wherever they built them, they committed corruption. So how could the Yamuna be cleaned?” Maliwal added.
(IANS)
