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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal dared the Bharatiya Janata Party to arrest Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other leaders of the party in connection with the controversial Rs 3,600 core AgustaWestland chopper deal.
He also questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “silence” on the issue and wondered why Central Bureau of Investigations raids have not been conducted against Congress leaders in connection with the case.
“I dare BJP two arrest Sonia ji and those Congress leaders named in Italy court order and interrogate them,” Kejriwal tweeted in on Thursday evening and went on to questions BJP’s “intentions”.
“BJP’ll never do it. BJP’S intentions are bad. For five years, BJP will engage in political rhetoric. There is a strong relationship between Congress and BJP,” he said in another tweet.
This is the first instance of Kejriwal directly naming Sonia which he had refrained from since the row erupted in Parliament. He had been demanding the arrest of “all Congress persons” involved in the murky deal.
Earlier in the day, the Aam Aadmi Party chief asked whether those named in Italian court order should not be immediately arrested and interrogated.
“Why is the PM silent on Agusta? First BJP spared Vadra, now protecting entire Congress top brass in Augusta?” the Delhi chief minister said on Twitter, referring to Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.
He also tweeted, “Shouldn’t those named in Italy court order be immediately arrested and interrogated? CBI raid had been conducted at me, but why there is no raid at Congress persons.”
In December last year, CBI had raided the office of Kejriwal’s Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar in connection with an alleged corruption case. Kejriwal had then accused the PM of getting CBI raid conducted at Delhi Secretariat.
The controversial deal to buy VVIP choppers and the alleged bribes paid in clinching it have triggered a political storm after an Italian court “cited handwritten references” to Sonia, her political secretary Ahmed Patel and former Air Chief S P Tyagi by a middleman in a judgment that convicted the helicopter company’s chief executive.