K Kavitha paid ₹100 crore to AAP leaders for favours in Delhi excise policy, says ED; AAP responds

Days after Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Delhi excise policy case, the federal agency, in a statement released on Monday, said that she conspired with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia to get favours and was involved in the payment of ₹100 crore.

The ED statement came a day after the agency issued a ninth summons to Arvind Kejriwal in the case and asked the Delhi CM to appear before it for questioning.

"Kavitha along with others conspired with the top leaders of AAP including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia for getting favours in the Delhi excise policy formulation and implementation,” the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said in a statement, as per Hindustan Times. 

Also Read: All about Delhi Jal Board case in which ED has summoned Arvind Kejriwal, Atishi

"In exchange for these favours, she was involved in paying ₹100 crore to the leaders of AAP," the federal agency added.

K Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was arrested by the ED last week and is expected to remain in the agency's custody till March 23. The federal agency claimed that it had credible evidence against the BRS leader. K Kavitha and her aides made advance payments to AAP leaders related to Delhi excise policy and planned to generate profits from the same, it said.

Her arrests triggered protests in Telangana with BRS leaders staging protest marches terming the ED action “illegal” and demanding her release. "BRS held protests across Telangana against the illegal arrest of K Kavitha," the official X handle of the BRS said.

ED expands net in Delhi excise policy case

K Kavitha's arrest came as the Enforcement Directorate expanded its net in the Delhi excise policy case with prominent AAP leaders like Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Jha already in jail. The federal agency is continuously sending summons to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and even approached the court in the matter.

The AAP has maintained that the ED summons is nothing but the BJP's attempts to arrest Arvind Kejriwal in order to stop him from campaigning in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The party has asserted that the ED has no concrete evidence in the case and the AAP leaders are languishing in jail due to the draconian provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

AAP responds to ED's ₹100 crore claim

The AAP responded to the allegations made by the ED around the ₹100 crore paid by K Kavitha and said the federal agency is releasing blatant lies. The party also questioned the ED's neutrality as an independent investigative agency and said that it is working like the political wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“On earlier occasions too, ED has released such blatantly false and frivolous statements which show that instead of being a neutral investigative agency, it is working like a political wing of BJP. This is a desperate attempt to malign the image of Shri Arvind Kejriwal and Shri Manish Sisodia by planting falsehoods and creating a media sensation every day,” the statement released by AAP said. 

“ED's statement, which presents no new fact or evidence, speaks volumes of its frustratation since they have not recovered a single rupee or piece of evidence in this case, despite carrying out over 500 raids and questioning thousands of witnesses. Even the SC has discarded ED's claim that any money trail of ₹100 Cr exists in this matter. The entire world knows by now that the entire Excise case is fake and without an iota of evidence,” the statement added. 

“For the last two years, ED has been trying to find the proceeds of crime in this case. It has raided the house of many AAP leaders including Shri Manish Sisodia's house but they didn't find a single rupee. But we now know that almost all the companies who have given Electoral bonds to the BJP were earlier raided by ED. That means companies accused by ED of money laundering transferred their proceeds of crime to BJP accounts immediately after being raided. An impartial investigation into this would result into at least a thousand FIRs. This also includes companies raided by ED in the Excise case who later ended up donating Electoral bonds to BJP. So if the ED is interested in finding the proceeds of crime in the Delhi Excise case, it exists in BJP's accounts,” the AAP statement further said.