New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah today extended the party's full support to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Rubbishing allegations against Jaitley in the DDCA issue as baseless, the BJP President said that the party would not let the AAP succeed in its conspiracy to tarnish Jaitley's image.
"All allegations on Arun Jaitley are baseless and away from truth. The entire BJP is standing by his side as a unit," Shah said in a statement.
Stating that any attempts by the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to taint Jaitley would not be allowed to succeed, Shah said: "If AAP feels that with such ill-intended moves, it would be able to tarnish his image, it would be like living in a reverie."
"Arun Jaitley has led his entire public life based on high standards and principles," he added.
Shah also warned the AAP against targeting Jaitley saying doing so would harm the party in the long run.
It is being alleged the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) gave out contracts to fake companies, paying them crores of rupees in cash, and had fudged the audit of accounts.
On Monday, Jaitley dragged Kejriwal and five other party leaders to court in a defamation suit seeking Rs.10 crore in damages for accusing him of corruption when he headed the DDCA.
The DDCA row is the latest in the series of allegations and counter-allegations between the governments in Delhi and at the Centre ever since the former came to power for the second time. What initially began as a turf war for the control of the Delhi Police and part of the administrative machinery has now snowballed into a major confrontation.
The issue spiraled into a major controversy when the Central Bureau of Investigation conducted a raid on the office of Rajendra Kumar, Principal Secretary in the Delhi government over charges of corruption since 2007.
Kejriwal claimed it to be a personal political attack against him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he even termed as a 'coward' and a 'psychopath'.
