In a revision of his earlier stand, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has written to the Enforcement Directorate offering to appear before it via video conferencing after March 12 to answer questions related to the excise policy case. The AAP national convenor has so far skipped multiple summonses of the ED, calling them illegal and asking the agency to wait as the matter was in court.
This is the first time Kejriwal has said he is ready to appear before the Enforcement Directorate even if via video-conferencing. In his earlier replies to the ED, the CM had said that he is willing to answer the agency’s questions in the form of a questionnaire.
Kejriwal also has to appear before a city court on March 16. The court has sought his personal appearance in a complaint case filed by the ED over skipping of its summonses by him. The AAP has maintained that the ED should wait for the court verdict instead of sending repeated summons.
The party, in power in Delhi and Punjab, has also alleged that its leader Kejriwal is being “targeted repeatedly” for refusing to quit the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.
“The purpose of ED is not investigation. The BJP has been completely exposed. When the CM is ready to answer, why is the ED not questioning him? The purpose is to arrest Kejriwal. Let the questioning happen via video conferencing,” the AAP said in a statement, also demanding that the proceedings of the ED questioning be telecast live.
In written responses to ED’s previous summons, Kejriwal had termed them summons “illegal”, “unsubstantiated in law”, “politically motivated” and designed to stall the AAP’s election campaigns.
The Kejriwal government in Delhi will present its 10th budget on Monday, the last before the Lok Sabha elections this year and Assembly elections early next year. According to sources, the defining feature of the budget would be ‘Ram Rajya’. Ahead of the 2020 Assembly elections, Kejriwal had recited the Hanuman Chalisa to show that he is a believer of Lord Hanuman. Later in the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal had vowed to bring in ‘Ram Rajya’ in the capital. He had defined the 10 principles like free and good quality health, education and security for women, among others, which would define the ‘Ram Rajya’.