New Delhi: Stepping up its offensive on AAP, BJP today dubbed it as a “brilliant propagandist” and dug into Arvind Kejriwal's IRS roots to ask what he would have done to deal with alleged dubious donations of the kind received by his party.
With three days left for Delhi Assembly calls, the BJP said the AAP claims to wear the label of honesty on its sleeves and questioned the “conspicuous silence” of Kejriwal on its “dubious” funding, alleging his political conduct has been completely contradictory to the standards he had set for himself.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said political donations made through cheques “do not purify the transaction” and wondered what Kejriwal would have done as a revenue official to deal with it. The ex-Delhi Chief Minister is a former Indian Revenue Service(IRS) officer.
“Surely, Kejriwal is not a stranger to the tax laws. He knew what his party was doing. He should be honest enough to tell the people what ‘Avind Kejriwal, IRS' would have done under these circumstances?” Jaitley said in an article “What would Arvind Kejriwal, IRS have done?” on his Facebook post.
He also alleged, “The AAP is a brilliant propagandist. It claims to wear the label of honesty on its sleeves.”
Jaitley asked Kejriwal if payment by cheque to political parties “forgives all sins of blackmoney conversion?”
“Would he have asked the assessee to write a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or allowed him to argue that a payment by cheque to political parties forgives all sins of blackmoney conversion? Would he have arrested the fraudulent assessee under the Indian Penal Code rather than proceeding under the Income Tax Act?,” he questioned.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Kejriwal to answer queries posed to him for accepting funds from “dummy” companies which “have fictitious addresses, have common directors and no business to show and are making no profits.”
He noted that the law will take its own course and legal architecture of Finance Ministry will look into the issue.
“All his claims to be the sole custodian of propriety, of probity, of morality, of standards of polity in India stand completely exposed because of his conspicuous silence to squarely face these searching questions.
“The political conduct has been completely contradictory to the standards Kejriwal set for himself,” Prasad said, asking the AAP leader as to why he was running away from the truth and accused him of turning blackmoney into white. “I strongly condemn this,” Prasad said.
