CBI ‘scared’ of Sisodia, says CM; Delhi govt refutes charges of irregularity

NEW DELHI: The CBI is “scared” of Manish Sisodia, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said, referring to the inquiry initiated by the agency against his deputy. On his part, Sisodia dared the investigating agency to arrest him. The preliminary inquiry was merely a tool to stall reforms in Delhi’s education sector, he said.

“Manish kept waiting for CBI, but it did not come. Till now, people used to be scared of CBI, for the first time CBI is scared of someone,” Kejriwal tweeted. Sisodia said he was being punished for creating world class facilities for schoolchildren “unlike governments” who push them towards “drugs”.

“My work scares them. I invited them to come and arrest me. They should understand that they are affecting the future of 26 lakh children of Delhi and causing me no personal harm. The moment we vowed to arrest Punjab Minister (Vikram) Majithia, they made arrangements to arrest me,” he said, addressing an event.

Meanwhile, asked about the CBI inquiry against his daughter Saumya over her appointment as adviser to the Mohalla Clinic project, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said: “It seems Jung has got noth- ing out of the 400 files he had sought for.”

Refuting the allegation of irregularities in the “Talk to AK” programme, a government official said that neither a specific consultant was hired for the particular programme nor any amount has been paid yet from the government exchequer.

“Through proper tender, a public relations company was appointed by the government in June last year to publicise its works for a period of one year while “Talk to AK” was held in July. The government also denied that Rs 1.58 crore was spent on social media campaign of ‘Talk to Campaign’.

“As the government doesn’t have any expertise in dealing with social media campaign, the hired PR company had assured government that it will manage the social media campaign for ‘Talk to AK’. Besides, payments have also been made through credit cards to Facebook and Google for any such campaign which government usually does not do,” the official said.

“The government has not made payments of Rs 98 lakh to the company so far. The bill is still pending with the government. Government strongly refutes allegation of any irregularity in social media campaign of “Talk to AK’,” a government spokesperson said.