In the midst of the political war over the arrest of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia Delhi in connection with the liquor excise policy scam case, eight opposition parties have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging misuse of the government’s investigative agencies to target them.
Chief Ministers K Chandrashekar Rao, Mamata Banerjee, Bhagwant Mann, and Arvind Kejriwal are among the opposition leaders who have signed the letter.
Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference, Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, Uddav Thackeray of the Sena, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, and Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy chief minister of Bihar, have also signed the letter. The Congress party, however, did not join the opposition parties in signing the letter addressed to PM Modi.
The letter begins with the hope that India is still a ‘democracy’ even though it is alleged in the letter that the country has moved from being a democracy to ‘autocracy’ pointing at the alleged ‘misuse’ of central probe agencies.
“We hope you would agree that India is still a democratic country. The blatant misuse of central agencies against the members of the opposition appears to suggest that we have transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy,” the letter said.
“After a long witch-hunt, Manish Sisodia was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with alleged irregularities without a shred of evidence against him,” the opposition leaders stated in the letter to PM Modi.
“Since 2014, there has been a marked rise in the number of raids conducted, cases lodged against, and arrest of the opposition leaders. Be it Lalu Prasad Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena), Azam Khan (Samajwadi Party), Nawab Malik, Anil Deshmukh (NCP), Abhishek Banerjee (TMC), central agencies have often sparked suspicion that they were working as extended wings of the ruling dispensation at the centre,” the letter reads further.
Nine Opposition leaders including Arvind Kejriwal have written to PM Modi on the arrest of former Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia in the excise policy case. They have stated that the action appears to suggest that “we have transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy”. pic.twitter.com/ohXn3rNuxI
— ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2023
Interestingly, while today AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal is using Lalu Yadav’s endorsement for Manish Sisodia, here is what he had said about the RJD patriarch earlier.
In the context of the infamous fodder scam Kejriwal in a tweet posted on October 3, 2013, Arvind Kejriwal wrote on Twitter, “Laloo made crores in the fodder scam. But no order for recovery of that money. Just 25 lakh fine and a few years in jail. A sweet deal.”
In a tweet posted on the same date and just minutes after the first one the AAP leader claimed that it is due to this that Lalu Prasad Yadav is “opposed to Anna’s (Hazare) Jana Lokpal.”
In a 2011 tweet, Arvind Kejriwal had questioned if there will ever be a strong anti-corruption law in India and asked “are we to treat Laloo (Lalu Prasad Yadav), Mulayam (Singh Yadav), Sibbal (Kapil Sibal) and Chiddu (P Chidambaram) as supreme?”
Kejriwal may be out of political compulsion to pose a fight against Narendra Modi at a national level today is taking support from RJD and Lalu Yadav, however, back in 2020, he opined that BJP, Congress, JDU, LJP, JJP, and RJD are on one side aiming to defeat him and on the other side stands Kejriwal aiming to defeat corruption.
“On one side – BJP, JD (U) , LJP, JJP, Congress, RJD. On the other side – schools, hospitals, water, electricity, and free travel for women, and people of Delhi. My aim is to defeat corruption and take Delhi forward. All they want is to defeat me,” Arvind Kejriwal tweeted on January 21, 2020.
Coming to Manish Sisodia, who has been arrested on February 26 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the alleged Delhi liquor excise policy case, has earlier opposed Lalu Yadav for his ‘corruption’ and ‘goondaism’.
In a tweet dated back to 2012, Sisodia outlined how he got to know the truth of ‘Sushasan’ meaning good governance in Bihar as when he was in the Barh area of Bihar he was told by the locals about tales of the goondaism of the leaders of Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar.
“I am in Barh town of Bihar. Tales of hooliganism by the leaders of Lalu and Nitish are heard equally in the streets of Barh. This is the truth of good governance!,” Sisodia tweeted on November 30, 2012.
Sisodia in his old tweets had persistently pointed out Lalu Prasad Yadav’s corruption and opposition to the Lokpal Bill.
In one such tweet, Sisodia stated that if took seventeen years to just say that “Lalu Yadav is corrupt” then think about how long it will take for him to get the punishment.” “Lalu Yadav did corruption!” We took 17 years just to say this… This is our system of justice!… It will take more time to get the punishment,” Sisodia tweeted on September 30, 2013.
Interestingly, Lalu Yadav had in 2012 during a ‘Parivartan Rally’ in Kisanganj called Arvind Kejriwal an “agent of America” and that on the pretext of running an NGO, Kejriwal danced to the tunes of the United States.
In November 2015, Arvind Kejriwal received flak from his own supporters over hugging Lalu Prasad Yadav at the swearing-in ceremony of Nitish Kumar as Bihar CM. Back then, Kejriwal was quick to ‘clarify’ that he did not hug a tainted RJD leader rather it was Yadav who pulled and hugged him.
“We are against his record of corruption and we’ll always oppose it,” Kejriwal asserted. “We are against dynasty politics. His two sons are ministers. We are against that too,” Kejriwal said.
Apparently, the Aam Aadmi Party which once claimed that “hum rajneeti karne nahi badalne aaye hain” has become the very part of the same ‘rajneeti’ it wanted to change.
Fodder Scam
The infamous Fodder Scam which is famously known as The Chara Ghotala involves former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, wherein he is accused of illegal withdrawal of government funds from various treasuries in many districts of Bihar. The stifled money which counts up to Rs. 950 crores was withdrawn under the pretence of spending on fodder and other expenses for cattle over many years until the scandal broke out in 1996.
While Lalu has been previously found guilty in scams pertaining to four treasuries, the CBI had registered 53 separate cases in 1996 in order to investigate the scam. The largest among which was the Doranda Treasury case RC 47 (A)/96 which involved the highest number of 170 people accused including the RLD chief who has been proven with embezzlement of collecting Rs 139.5 crore in the case.
