"Centre Wants To Suppress Arvind Kejriwal's Voice": AAP's Atishi

After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) summoned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the ongoing probe into the excise policy of the national capital, Delhi Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi on Saturday said that the Centre wants to suppress Kejriwal's voice as he is vocal against the Modi government.

Addressing the mediapersons, Atishi said, "CBI has summoned the Delhi CM tomorrow. Why is he being called for an inquiry? Were crores of rupees found in Kejriwal's house?... Gold biscuits were found. The central agencies have not been able to keep evidence against a single AAP leader or MLA. Now, these investigating agencies are calling Arvind Kejriwal because they want to suppress Kejriwal's voice."

Today the leader, who is raising his voice against the Centre and the Prime Minister is Arvind Kejriwal, she said.

Atishi further said, "It has been almost 10 years since Modi ji ran the government. They speak about reducing inflation. But the prices of everything have increased. Only Arvind Kejriwal has been raising his voice against it."

The Delhi Minister said there are no jobs and over 5 crore youth are unemployed. She further said around 22 crore people are malnourished in the country. And only Kejriwal, she said has been raising these issues.

"The question is where the country's money is going. After Modi ji became the Prime Minister, there is a big increase in the net worth of only his special friends. Kejriwal exposes this corruption layer by layer in the assembly, which is why Modi ji wants to suppress Kejriwal's voice," Atishi said.

No matter how much the Centre threaten Kejriwal, AAP will continue to raise the voice of the people against corruption, Atishi said.

"AAP is not afraid if they think that they can silence Arvind Kejriwal through CBI and ED," she added.

In a major development in the Delhi excise policy case, the CBI has summoned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on April 16.

AAP leaders said that Kejriwal will appear before CBI for questioning.

Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, a key aide of Kejriwal, is in jail over alleged irregularities in the excise policy case.

Sisodia was arrested by ED and CBI in the ongoing investigation of a case related to alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy in Delhi.

The CBI arrested Sisodia on February 26, 2023. Later on March 9, the ED arrested him, after hours of questioning at Tihar Jail.

The ED and the CBI had alleged that irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy, undue favours were extended to licence holders, the licence fee was waived or reduced and the L-1 licence was extended without the competent authority's approval. The beneficiaries diverted "illegal" gains to the accused officials and made false entries in their books of account to evade detection, the probe agencies said.