Kejriwal wins on spin: Jaitley hits back at Delhi CM's 'propaganda', tells Nitish and Mamata to back off

The latest Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday hit back at the Aam Aadmi Party leadership over allegations of financial irregularities in the Delhi Cricket Board (DDCA) during his tenure as its chief as the BJP leadership closed ranks to defend Jaitley in a string of strongly worded rebuttals. Jaitley slammed Arvind Kejriwal for “propaganda technique to deflect attention.” He also used the latest furore over CBI raids to tell West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to ”redeem themselves by publicly distancing themselves from Mr Kejriwal’s vocabulary (against the Prime Minister)”. Jaitley lashed out at Arvind Kejriwal for indulging in “untruth and defamation, delivered in a language that borders on hysteria.”

“There is no question of the resignation of Jaitley. They (AAP) are playing their political cards. This is no issue.” – Parliamentary Affairs Minister and BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu. “Political hysteria is being created to deflect attention from a corrupt officer. AAP has made false allegations. A leader with an impeccable record in public life, who has defended the Constitution, stands to be defamed by a blasphemous and hysterical campaign by the Aam Aadmi Party.” – Union minister Smriti Irani. The art of spin Full marks to Arvind Kejriwal. He has succeeded in his diversionary tactic. Through a series of tweets, sound bytes and press conferences, both structured and unstructured, he and his cabinet colleagues have somewhat achieved what they had set out for – shift the media focus and consequent speculation in public as to why the Delhi chief minister and the ruling AAP dispensation were overreacting to CBI raids at principal secretary Rajendra Kumar. On Thursday, they levelled accusations against Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for omissions and commissions in Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA), which he headed till two years ago. [caption id=“attachment_2549784” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. AFP[/caption] Though he may not exactly have been able to turn an adversarial situation to his advantage - no one is sure where the CBI searches, seizures and probes in Rajendra Kumar case will lead to - Kejriwal must be credited for taking political spin doctoring to a new high, or a new low. The man behind the scene in the DDCA matter, as is known in AAP and the political circle in general, is the famous spinner of yesteryear, Bishan Singh Bedi. The other person is Kirti Azad, another spinner, whose personal, professional or political feud with Jaitley is providing fodder to Kejriwal and his team. Bedi and Azad spun the ball on a cricket pitch, Kejriwal has gone miles ahead in politics. The Aam Aadmi Party website on Thursday had Bedi’s tweets on AAP’s charges on DDCA-Jaitley with Kejriwal’s own. These appreciated Kejriwal with words like “agree” and ”good point”. It didn’t matter whether allegations made by Kejriwal and his party were in the public domain for long, it also didn’t matter whether these allegations were investigated by the Centre’s Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) when the Congress-led UPA was in power and came to certain conclusions. Jaitley, in his post, said, “even though I am not concerned with cricket administration since 2013, a Member of Parliament (BJP MP Kirti Azad) has been writing to various governmental bodies with regard to Delhi’s cricket affairs. The UPA Government seized upon the opportunity and referred the complaints to the SFIO which investigated all his complaints over a period of time and submitted a detailed Report on 21st March 2013. The Report concluded in relation to the DDCA being registered under the Companies Act, that: `thus, in a nutshell, there are certain irregularities / non-compliance or technical violations, but no fraud (was) noticed as alleged’. These technical and procedural violations were all compoundable and were compounded by Members against whom they were alleged. The SFIO, under the UPA regime, investigated and could not find a shred of evidence against me. No personal allegation was ever made against me nor did I ever feel the need of contradicting it.” A case can always be reopened, provided there are some new facts and there is a realisation by the competent authorities that there has been a shoddy investigation and the process of law has been subverted. The DDCA issue needs public and official scrutiny, there can’t be two arguments. But the problem is by using it as an alibi, Kejriwal wishes to completely erase from public memory the issue of raids against Rajendra Kumar and the question that he kept Kumar in such close proximity despite several instances of irregularities brought to his notice by his party colleagues, Transparency International and the then Delhi government official Ashish Joshi. Another AAP charge against Jaitley is that DDCA, under his command, escalated the cost of construction of Ferozshah Kotla stadium from Rs 24 crore to Rs 114 crore, that too without building plan approval by MCD and DUAC. This was investigated by SFIO and some procedural, technical faults, not amounting to fraud, was found. Jaitey counters that, saying as they started getting more and more resources, they became more ambitious about their plans to build a bigger and better stadium. “There are fake allegations such as escalation of cost of construction of a stadium. When work expands, cost escalations are integral. A brand new 42,000 capacity world class stadium was constructed by the EPIL, a public sector body, at a total cost of around Rs 114 crore. At the same time, the UPA Government renovated two stadiums. The Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium was renovated at a cost of over Rs 900 crore and Dhyan Chand stadium at a cost of over Rs 600 crore,” Jaitey says. “Free speech is unquestionably a pre-eminent Fundamental Right, but does free speech include the right to speak only falsehood? The Delhi Chief Minister, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, seems to believe in untruth and defamation, delivered in a language that borders on hysteria,” Jaitley added. But the fact is that Jaitley and some other senior ministers in Modi government like Smriti Irani, Venkaiah Naidu and Ravi Shankar Prasad had to come out and defend him on the issues raised by AAP. It’s not just the DDCA but it’s also the issue of attack on federalism that they had to defend. Ironic, isn’t it? It should give some food for thought to the BJP.