BJP seeks Kejriwal’s arrest over water tanker scam report

New Delhi, June 24 (IANS) Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay on Friday sought the arrest of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over water tanker scam, in an increasingly bitter fight with the AAP with two sides accusing each other of various scams and crimes.

"Earlier, I had demanded his (Kejriwal's) resignation and now I demand that the Delhi Police arrest him," Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi unit chief Upadhyay told reporters here.

He alleged that Kejriwal "suppressed" for 11 months the report of a fact-finding team that probed the alleged irregularities in hiring some 385 stainless steel water tankers by the Delhi Jal Board in 2012 during the tenure of the Congress government headed by Shiela Dikshit.

"Water Minister Kapil Mishra gave report of the fact-finding committee to Kejriwal, but why there was a delay in sending the report to Lt. Governor," Upadhyay said.

"Why payments to the private company were carried on for 17 months, instead of cancelling it? Why Keshav Chandra, who was earlier private secretary to Dikshit, was made Chief Executive Officer of Jal Board?" the BJP leader said.

Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has already sought the arrest of Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung and BJP's Lok Sabha member Maheish Girri in the case of murder of M.M. Khan, an estate officer of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC).

The AAP has also written to Jung demanding that he should make himself and Delhi Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) chief M.K. Meena accused in four cases pertaining to alleged scams during the Dikshit government.

Delhi Assembly Deputy Speaker and AAP legislator Rakhi Birla said on Thursday that the assembly's Petitions Committee, which she heads, will summon Jung and Meena for "no action" on the FIRs against Dikshit and other "wrongdoers" in various scams.

"Legal opinion will also be sought over the matter from the government's standing counsel before sending summons to the LG and the ACB chief," she said.

The AAP government in June 2015 set up a five-member fact-finding committee to probe the alleged irregularities in hiring some 385 stainless steel water tankers by the Delhi Jal Board in 2012 during Dikshit's tenure.

Its report submitted to Kejriwal in August 2015 highlighted an alleged corruption of Rs 400 crore in the process of awarding tenders for hiring water tankers, and recommended FIR against Dikshit and a further probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the ACB.