New Delhi: The CBI on Sunday grilled Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for nearly nine hours in the excise policy case, amid protests by his party as the AAP supremo accused the agency of acting at the behest of the BJP.
However, his questioning for the day ended at around 8 pm, officials said, adding that he is likely to be summoned again according to the requirements of the ongoing probe.
After the interrogation by CBI’s sleuths, he said that the probe agency asked him around 56 questions regarding the excise policy case and he had answered them all. “I want to say that the entire excise policy case is false. They do not have any evidence that the AAP is wrong. It’s a result of dirty politics,” Mr Kejriwal told reporters at his residence after his return from the CBI office.
Thanking the CBI officials for their “hospitality”, he said: “They asked me questions in a friendly and harmonious manner. I answered all the questions asked by them.”
“We are a dead honest party and we may die but won’t compromise with honesty and integrity, and that is why they want to finish us by building false cases to defame us”, he claimed.
“The BJP is afraid of the good work we are doing and that is why they want to destroy us as we are now a national party and our popularity is growing every day as the entire nation is with us,” he added.
Earlier in the day, after arriving at the CBI’s headquarters in his official black SUV, Mr Kejriwal was taken to the first-floor office of the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the CBI, which is probing the matter.
In a five-minute video message on Twitter before arriving at the heavily- fortified CBI headquarters at around 11 am, the Delhi CM claimed that the BJP might have ordered the agency to arrest him.
Senior CBI officials remained ensconced at the agency headquarters here on Sunday to keep an eye on developments, a normal practice whenever a VIP is questioned at the state-of-the-art building, they said.
The CBI had summoned the AAP supremo on April 14, seeking his appearance as a witness before the investigation team to answer their queries on the inputs generated during the probe, the sources said.
The questioning revolved around the policy formulation process on the controversial excise policy, especially the “untraceable” file, which was earlier said to be put before the council of ministers, the sources said.
The file containing the opinions of the expert committee and public and legal opinions on it was not kept before the council of ministers and remains untraceable, the sources said.
They said that Mr Kejriwal was also quizzed on the statements of other accused, where they have indicated the way in which policy was allegedly influenced to favour some liquor businessmen and the South liquor lobby, they said.
During the questioning session, he was offered a lunch break but he chose not to go outside the CBI office, sources said.
Former Delhi deputy CM and AAP leader Manish Sisodia was arrested on February 26 after nearly eight hours of questioning in the case, with the agency dubbing his answers as unsatisfactory. He quit as deputy CM of Delhi on February 28.
Mr Kejriwal, who received solidarity messages from several Opposition leaders after being summoned by the agency, asserted that he would honestly answer questions posed by the CBI as he has nothing to hide.
“Since yesterday, all of their leaders are screaming at the top of their voices that Kejriwal will be arrested, and I think BJP has instructed the CBI also that Kejriwal should be arrested. If the BJP has given an order, then who is the CBI? The CBI is going to arrest me,” he said.
On Sunday morning, before reaching the CBI office, he visited Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Rajghat, accompanied by Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and some Cabinet colleagues, and then went to the agency’s office.
Earlier, as Mr Kejriwal’s questioning got underway, top AAP leaders, including Mr Mann, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi, Kailash Gahlot, Sandeep Pathak, Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh gathered near the CBI headquarters and raised slogans against the Prime Minister.
Several AAP leaders, including Punjab ministers and MLAs, alleged they were stopped from entering Delhi.
The ruling party in Punjab claimed that ministers Bram Shanker Jimpa, Balbir Singh and Harjot Singh Bains, and MLAs Dinesh Chadha and Kuljit Randhawa were among those stopped at the Singhu border.
While Mr Kejriwal was being questioned, several senior AAP leaders were “detained” by the Delhi police during a sit-in at Archbishop Road against his summoning.
The detainees included Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha, Delhi ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi and Kailash Gahlot, AAP spokesperson Adil Ahmad Khan, AAP general secretary Pankaj Gupta and some ministers in the Punjab government.
Security was stepped up at the CBI headquarters, with the Delhi police putting in place four rings of barricades. Over 1,000 security personnel, including from the paramilitary forces, were deployed outside the CBI headquarters and Section 144 CrPC was imposed in the area to ensure no gathering of more than four persons took place, they said.
Union law minister Kiren Rijiju alleged that the AAP used activist Anna Hazare to capture power in the name of corruption. Mr Rijiju also shared portions of an undated interview of Hazare in which the activist purportedly sounded critical of the Delhi excise policy. “Now they have captured power I am sure they will not even listen to Annaji. Corruption was an excuse to fool Annaji and the people,” he tweeted.
Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said: “We have seen both of them claiming that there is no evidence against them, but once arrested they have been denied bail by the courts, and we are sure once the CBI completes investigation Kejriwal too will land up in jail without bail as he is the mastermind of the entire liquor scam.”
Reacting to the CBI’s move, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken launched a scathing attack on Mr Kejriwal, saying that individuals like him and his associates who face “serious corruption charges” should not be shown any sympathy or support.
