A combative Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, furious over the CBI raid at the Delhi Secretariat, has alleged that the day-long action by the probe agency was to look for an inquiry committee file relating to Delhi District Cricket Association that "traps" Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
"It has become necessary to reveal that why did the CBI come to my office today and which was the file they were looking for. Ye file hai DDCA ka file jiske andar Arun Jaitley phas rahe hain (This is the DDCA file under which Arun Jaitley is getting trapped)," the Delhi chief minister claimed.
Kejriwal said his government had set up an inquiry committee to probe alleged irregularities in DDCA which had submitted its report.
"Jaitley was the DDCA President for many years and I had set up a committee to probe all the corruption that has taken place during his tenure. The committee has submiited its report and a commission of inquiry was to be set up over it, and a file pertaining to it was in my office," alleged Kejriwal.
The CBI had earlier clarified it carried out searches at the office of Kejriwal's Principal Secretary Rajender Kumar's office at the Delhi Secretariat and not that of the chief minister. The action was in connection with allegations against Kumar of favouring private companies in awarding government contracts from 2007-2014.
The Chief Minister said the sole motive of the raid was to "target me" and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to apologise to the nation for his "misdeeds", saying only then he will tender apololgy for calling him "coward and a psychopath".
After a meeting with his Cabinet colleagues and senior AAP leaders that lasted around two hours, Kejriwal said the Centre will not be able to scare him and that he will continue to fight till his last breath.
"They have no interest in the contracts awarded by Rajender. If he had awarded contracts in 2007, what were you doing till 2015 Modiji? It's been long that your government has come.
"I want to tell you Modiji, you have scared others through the CBI but Kejriwal won't get scared. You know what am I made of. I will fight for the country till my last breath but will never get intimidated. Modiji's use of the CBI and other means won't scare me, I want to tell him clearly.
"They say that my choice of words was incorrect, but your actions are bad. My words may be bad, I was born in Siwan village of Haryana. Maybe my words were bad. But your actions are bad. You apologise to the nation for your misdeeds and I will apologise for my words," he said.
Talking to reporters at Sisodia's residence, Kejriwal wondered why the CBI conducted raids "on the most honest party and the honest Cabinet" of the country and termed as "complete lies" the version of CBI and the Centre.
"They say that the raid was against my principal secretary Rajinderji for favouring a particular firm in the 2007-14 period while he held the post of Education Secretary, VAT commissioner, IT secretary. This is coming across as a lie to me.
"But the action does not seem to be over this issue. If Kumar had awarded wrong contracts in his capacity as education secretary, the CBI should have raided the education department as well.
"The CBI won't get any files related to those alleged contracts in the office of the chief minister as the CM's office does not keep record of files older than ten to fifteen days," said Kejriwal.
The chief minister said if CBI was looking to probe irregularities in award of contracts, it would have raided offices of those departments as well as other officials who had taken such decisions.
"Those alleged files would be available in the record room of the education department. If related to VAT, it would be available in the record room of the VAT department. But they did not raid education or VAT department or IT department.
They have not even sought the files they are talking about from the Delhi government," he said.
The chief minister said his government is "strictly against corruption" and graft related such cases are being dealt with strictly.
"Tomorrow even if my son indulges in corruption I will jail him before anyone else," said the chief minister.
