'Quite natural' for Kejriwal to get ED summons, says Vijayvargiya

Indore: Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Tuesday accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of indulging in corruption and said it was 'quite natural' for the AAP convener to get the Enforcement Directorate's summons.

The ED has summoned Kejriwal for questioning in an excise policy-linked money-laundering case on November 2. This is the first time that Kejriwal has been summoned by the ED.

It is alleged that the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The policy was subsequently scrapped and the Delhi lieutenant governor recommended a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in its implementation, following which the ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

"The kind of corruption he has committed and the way he has implicated his own colleague Manish Sisodia, it is quite natural for the Delhi chief minister to get the ED summons," Vijayvargiya told reporters in Indore while replying to a query on the central agency's summons to Kejriwal.

Terming Kejriwal a 'conspirator', the BJP general secretary said, 'Such a person can never get away with his acts.' The investigating agencies are perhaps getting a lot of evidence in the alleged excise policy scam, due to which Kejriwal has been summoned by the ED, he claimed.

Referring to the upcoming visits by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Madhya Pradesh ahead of the state assembly elections, Vijayvargiya said PM Modi was an effective leader.

"Wherever he (Modi) goes, he leaves an impact on the public. But in the case of Priyanka, people come to watch her but they don't listen to her. While people come to listen to Modi and they don't come to see him," he said.

Vijayvargiya, who is the ruling BJP's candidate from Indore-1 assembly constituency, also said that the party has spoken to 90 per cent of the leaders who rebelled against it in the Malwa-Nimar region of western Madhya Pradesh and filed their nominations as independent candidates. He expressed confidence that these leaders will withdraw their candidature.