The Delhi government today rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party’s contention that Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was given a clean-chit by an inquiry it had appointed to investigate alleged irregularities into the Delhi & District Cricket Association affairs which was headed by him for around 13 years until 2013.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he would not apologise for targeting Jaitley as "no clean chit" was ever given while his Deputy Manish Sisodia posed four questions to the Finance Minister and BJP over the alleged financial bunglings in the DDCA when Jaitley headed the cricket body and wondered why they were "running away" from a probe.
"Our panel has not named anyone in this report. Does that mean that corruption happened during the period but ghosts did it?
"Why there is so much rush to absolve Jaitley? Why so much pressure? Probe by the Commission of Inquiry has begun yesterday only. Gopal Subramaniam whom we appointed as its chief had given the letter of acceptance yesterday," Sisodia told media persons.
Taking to twitter, Kejriwal said, "No clean chit ever given by any Del govt probe. That report confirmed several instances of wrongdoings but did not fix responsibility."
On the Delhi government's inquiry panel into the DDCA case, the CM said in another tweet, "It didn't mention ANYONE's name n recommended Enquiry Commission to fix responsibility, which we have done now."
Referring to certain allegations against the DDCA, Sisodia said, "Wasn't Jaitley the head of DDCA during 1999-2013 when these irregularities happened? When laptops were hired at Rs 16,000 per day when cost of renovation of the the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium escalated to Rs 144 crore from Rs 24 crore.
"The companies that were given contracts in that period had same directors and same addresses. Does not this indicate towards corruption? How did this happen then? Who did it?"
Sisodia claimed that attempts were afoot to manufacture a "clean image" of Jaitley even before the government constituted probe panel starts going through the "large-scale" irregularities.
"The three-member probe committee report that the BJP is brandishing now was made public on November 17 itself. It essentially summarises the findings of SFIO and the internal reports of the DDCA itself," the deputy chief minister said.
All those reports establish "massive corruption" in elections, stadium construction, proxy voting and points towards financial irregularities, Sisodia alleged.
In making his point, Sisodia also referred to suspended Bharat Member of Parliament Kirti Azad's press conference where the latter made a series of charges against the DDCA authorities.
"We just want Jaitley to say whether or not he was the DDCA president from 1999-2013? If yes, why is he running away from probe?" Sisodia asked.
Jaitley had denied allegations levelled by the Kejriwal government.
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