As the Enforcement Directorate (ED) questions Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in Tihar jail in connection with the liquor policy case, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said he will perform puja entire day on Holi for the country and has appealed to people to do the same. He also attacked PM Modi accusing him of jailing those who have been working for the country.
He said, "After 75 years of Independence, someone changed the face of government schools so that poor kids could get the same education as rich kids and that person was Manish Sisodia, and in the same way another person changed the condition of government hospitals, gave people the model of mohalla clinics so that the poor can get treatment. And another person looted the hard-earned money of people. Pm Modi has put Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain in jail on false cases and embraced the one looting the country."
He added, "I am worried but not about Manish Sisodia or Satyendar Jain -- they can die for the country, but I am worried about the country. In this country, the Prime Minister has put those working for the country in jail. I have decided to do puja the entire day on Holi and you should as well if you are worried about the country."
After the CBI, now the Enforcement Directorate questioned former Delhi Minister Manish Sisodia inside the jail in the liquor policy case.
The federal probe agency also made a fresh arrest in this case as it took into custody Hyderabad-based liquor businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, they said. Officials of the ED will reach the Tihar Jail around noon to record the statement of Sisodia under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, news agency PTI reported.
Sisodia was arrested by the CBI last month and he is currently in judicial custody.
Pillai was taken into custody under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Monday evening following a long session of questioning. The businessman, alleged to have represented the 'South Group' of liquor traders in this case, is the 11th person to be arrested in the case by the ED.
On Monday, a CBI court remanded the senior Sisodia to 14-day judicial custody till March 20 in the excise scam case amid an escalating political slugfest.
Sisodia will spend Holi in jail after the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) said it did not require his custody for now. His bail plea hearing is expected to come up on March 10.
Sisodia, who joins his former Cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain in jail, was produced before special judge M K Nagpal on the expiry of his seven-day custodial interrogation allowed by the court earlier after his arrest on February 26. Jain is lodged in Tihar jail since May last year following his arrest in a money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate(ED).
During the hearing, the CBI also accused supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) of 'politicising' the matter. It had arrested Sisodia in connection with alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped liquor policy for 2021-22.
The court allowed Sisodia to carry the Bhagavad Gita, spectacles, medicine etc. to jail while directing the Tihar jail authorities to consider his request for being allowed to do Vipassana meditation.
A Tihar jail official said Sisodia was brought to prison following the court order and he will be lodged in jail number-1 after the completion of due formalities.
As the AAP stepped up its attack on the BJP and also maintained that the CBI had no grounds to seek Sisodia's further interrogation, the Congress sought to clear the air over its stand on his arrest, asserting that the allegations in the Delhi excise policy case are serious and must be probed.