New Delhi: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday claimed that with health minister Satyendar Jain already in jail, he will also be arrested in 2-3 days in a conspiracy to stop the work being done in the education and health sector in the national capital. He also asserted that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls will be a fight between AAP and BJP, PM Narendra Modi and CM Arvind Kejriwal.
"Maybe within the next 3-4 days, CBI-ED will arrest me... we won't be scared, you won't be able to break us... the elections of 2024 will be Modi vs Kejriwal," the Delhi Education Minister said.
Manish Sisodia claimed that the Centre's issue is not the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. "Their problem is Arvind Kejriwal... whole proceedings against me, raids at my residence & office, are to stop Arvind Kejriwal... I haven't done any corruption. I'm just Arvind Kejriwal's Education Minister," he said, as quoted by news agency ANI.
According to the Deputy Chief Minister, the Excise policy due to which whole controversy is created "is the country's best policy". "We were applying it with transparency & sincerity. Had Delhi LG not changed his decision conspiring to fail the policy, the Delhi government would've been getting at least Rs 10,000 cr every year," he added.
Speaking about the raid at his residence on Friday, Sisodia thanked CBI officers for not causing any inconvenience to his family. "CBI officers came to my residence yesterday. They also raided Education Ministry's Dy CM office. All officers, in both places, were great people. They behaved very nicely. They had to obey orders from high command, but I'd like to thank them to have behaved so nicely," the Deputy CM who also holds the excise portfolio said.
Sisodia Compares NYT Coverage Of Delhi's Education Model With News On Bodies Cremated Along Ganga In 2021
The Delhi Education Minister cited The New York Times coverage of Delhi's education model and compared it with the coverage of COVID deaths during the second wave of the pandemic in 2021. "America's biggest newspaper The New York Times covered Delhi's education model on its front page yesterday. It's a pride for India... Around 1.5 years ago, another story was published by them showing thousands of bodies being cremated along Ganga, it was shameful."
On Friday, amid the CBI raid at the residence of Manish Sisodia, the AAP said the Narendra Modi government sent the CBI to his home after The New York Times carried a positive story on the Delhi model of education, and the BJP hit back saying it was a "paid" article.
Responding to the charges, the AAP said, "It is outrightly funny and stupid that the BJP is claiming the NYT story to be a paid article. Anyone working in the media can look at an article and gauge if it is paid or not."
Besides the raid at the home of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister, the CBI on Friday searched 30 other locations in seven states and Union territories in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy. The central probe agency claimed that Rs 1 crore had allegedly been paid to a company belonging to a close associate of the AAP leader.
Both Sisodia and CM Arvind Kejriwal "welcomed" the CBI raid as they maintained that the AAP government was working with honesty and the probe would fail to find anything against them.
(With Agency Inputs)
