New Delhi:
The ruling BJP today came out in strong support of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who has been accused by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of presiding over massive corruption in Delhi's cricket body, the DDCA, when he headed it in the past.
Mr Jaitley also said in a blog post: "Delhi CM Kejriwal seems to believe in untruth and defamation, delivered in language that borders on hysteria. No personal allegation was ever made against me nor did I ever feel the need of contradicting it."
Addressing a press conference,
Union Minister Smriti Irani said. "The BJP resolutely stands behind Arun Jaitley and publicly condemns the malicious intent of AAP to deflect public attention from a corrupt officer working with Arvind Kejriwal."
Ms Irani added that "no fraud has happened" under Mr Jaitley's chairmanship.
She said that the documents quoted by AAP at a press conference earlier today, to bolster their claims, belonged to the DDCA (Delhi and District Cricket Association) and did not mention Mr Jaitley.
AAP has reasserted that the CBI raid on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's top officer Rajender Kumar on Tuesday was linked to a DDCA file in the Chief Minister's office.
"BJP asked Manmohan Singh to resign over collective responsibility. We demand that Modi remove his corrupt minister," said AAP leader Kumar Vishwas.
"This scam was about siphoning off money by creating fake companies between 1999 and 2013 and one year after that. This went on for 15 years," Mr Vishwas added.
Mr Kejriwal has been saying that the CBI had searched for files linked to the DDCA in his office on Tuesday. The raids were aimed at seizing these files to help Mr Jaitley, he said, adding that the raid team did not take the documents away only because he had highlighted this in the media.
Mr Jaitley has rubbished the allegations and the government has stood by him.
"Arvind Kejriwal's attempt to try and save a corrupt officer is goes totally against the values of Anna Hazare's movement," Smriti Irani said.