Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The AAP on Monday said the ED's charges against it and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal regarding excise policy were 'blatantly false and frivolous', alleging that the agency was working like a political wing of the BJP.
BRS leader K Kavitha and some others 'conspired' with top AAP leaders, including Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, to get favours in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy by paying Rs 100 crore to the political party that rules Delhi, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Monday.
Kavitha was arrested last week by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from Hyderabad.
"On earlier occasions too, ED has released such blatantly false and frivolous statements which show that instead of being a neutral investigative agency, it is working like a political wing of BJP," AAP said in a statement.
No immediate reaction was available from the BJP over the AAP's charge.
The AAP said the ED's charges are a 'desperate attempt' to malign the image of its convener Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia by 'planting falsehoods and creating a media sensation' every day.
"ED's statement, which presents no new fact or evidence, speaks volumes of its frustration since they have not recovered a single rupee or piece of evidence in this case, despite carrying out over 500 raids and questioning thousands of witnesses," the AAP said.
Probe found, the ED claimed in a statement, that Kavitha along with others "conspired with the top leaders of AAP including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia for getting favours in the Delhi excise policy-formulation and implementation".
"In exchange of these favours, she was involved in paying Rs 100 crore to the leaders of AAP," the agency said.
The AAP, however, claimed 'even the SC has discarded ED's claim that any money trail of Rs 100 crore exists in this matter. The entire world knows by now that the entire excise case is fake and without an iota of evidence'.
For the last two years, the ED has been trying to find the proceeds of crime in this case. It has raided the house of many AAP leaders including Sisodia but they did not find a single rupee, claimed the AAP.
The party also said that 'almost all the companies' that have given electoral bonds to the BJP were earlier raided by the ED. 'That means companies accused by ED of money laundering transferred their proceeds of crime to BJP accounts immediately after being raided,' said the AAP.
These also included companies raided by the ED in the excise case that later ended up donating electoral bonds to the BJP, charged the AAP saying an impartial probe into it will lead to registration of thousands of FIRs.
The ED and the CBI have alleged that the Delhi government's excise policy to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the AAP.
The policy was scrapped by the Kejriwal government, days after Delhi LG V K Saxena in July 2022 recommended a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in its formulation and implementation. Later, a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) linked to the excise policy case, was registered by the ED.