Senior AAP Leader and Delhi minister Atishi Sunday said the Enforcement Directorate has sent Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal a fresh summons in a "fake" case linked to the Delhi Jal Board.
"Nobody knows what this DJB (Delhi Jal Board) case is about. This seems to be a backup plan to arrest Kejriwal anyhow and stop him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls," she claimed at a press conference here.
Responding to the minister's claim, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was working independently. He also accused Kejriwal of repeatedly flouting the law.
Atishi said two summonses asking Kejriwal to appear before the federal agency next week were received hours after the Lok Sabha poll date announcement on Saturday.
She added that one of them was related to the excise policy case and the other to the DJB. The AAP leader charged that the BJP was using ED and CBI as its "goons" to finish off political opponents.
There was no immediate reaction from the ED and the CBI on this.
The ED has summoned Kejriwal for questioning on March 18 in a money laundering probe linked to alleged irregularities in the DJB. This is the second case registered under the anti-money laundering law in which the 55-year-old politician, also the Aam Aadmi Party national convenor, has been summoned.
He is already facing summons for questioning in the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case. Kejriwal has skipped eight summonses in this case till now, terming them illegal.
A fresh and ninth such notice in the excise policy case stipulates him to appear before an ED investigating officer on March 21.
A Delhi court on Saturday granted Kejriwal bail on two complaints filed by the agency against him for skipping summons in this case.
Later in the day, AAP MLA Dilip Pandey said, "It is funny that the ED itself approached the court against Kejriwal but is not waiting for court orders. Kejriwal had said that he would appear before the court after the budget session and yesterday, he appeared before it. The ED's repeated summonses show the BJP's desperation."
Refuting the allegations levelled by the AAP leaders, Sachdeva said, "Arvind Kejriwal's former deputy chief minister has been in prison for over a year in the liquor scam case while another MP has also been in jail for a long time, but the repeated assertion by the Aam Aadmi Party that there was no scam in the liquor policy is ludicrous in itself."
