Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday for questioning in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. Taking a swipe at Kejriwal, West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Agnimitra Paul said “who knows the CM of Delhi could be arrested”, adding that the CM of Bengal Mamata Banerjee should be interrogated too.
"Arvind Kejriwal is being called tomorrow and probably who knows the CM of Delhi could be arrested. So, if the chief minister of Delhi can be arrested, why can't the CM of Bengal be interrogated? Before Jyotipriya Mallick, I think Mamata Banerjee should be interrogated. What is stopping ED from interrogating her? Let her be interrogated because she knows everything," news agency ANI quoted Paul as saying.
Mallick, a former food minister, was arrested by the ED in the early hours of October 27 in a money laundering case linked to an alleged ration distribution scam.
{{/usCountry}}Mallick, a former food minister, was arrested by the ED in the early hours of October 27 in a money laundering case linked to an alleged ration distribution scam.
{{/usCountry}}Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the BJP-led central government, alleging that it was conspiring to arrest all opposition leaders before the next year's Lok Sabha polls and cast votes for themselves in an “empty country”.
Meanwhile, alleging political vendetta, the West Bengal unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said it will protest outside the offices of the ED and CBI at the CGO Complex in Kolkata against the summoning of Kejriwal.
"We will hold a peaceful protest outside the ED and CBI offices at the CGO Complex in Salt Lake to protest the harassment of Arvind Kejriwal," AAP's West Bengal spokesperson Arnab Mitra said at a press conference.
He alleged that being unable to fight the AAP politically, the ruling BJP was resorting to vendetta and using central agencies against it.
Terming the summons to Kejriwal and the arrests of AAP leaders Satyendar Jain, Sanjay Singh and Manish Sisodia a "conspiracy", Mitra claimed that this was happening since the party won the Delhi and Punjab elections, and registered a 13 per cent vote share in the 2022 Gujarat assembly polls.
"An undeclared emergency is going on in the country and anyone opposing the ruling party at the Centre is being targeted," he claimed.
(With inputs from PTI, ANI)