New Delhi: A day ahead of the Supreme Court’s hearing challenging Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the alleged liquor policy case, Delhi lieutenant-governor (LG) V.K. Saxena on May 3 recommended a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into allegations of the Delhi chief minister receiving political funding from the banned Sikhs for Justice organisation.
The move has been termed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as one by a “rattled” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
The NIA probe was recommended on the basis of a complaint received on April 1 from Ashoo Mongia, national general secretary of the World Hindu Federation India, the letter, which came to light on Monday (May 6), said.
The complaint allegedly includes a video featuring Gurpatwant Singh Pannun (founder of Sikhs for Justice), in which he alleges that the AAP received $16 million in funding from extremist Khalistani groups between 2014 to 2022 for facilitating the release of Devendra Pal Bhullar, ANI reported.
Delhi LG, VK Saxena has recommended an NIA probe against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly receiving political funding from the banned terrorist organization “Sikhs for Justice”
AdvertisementLG had received a complaint that Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP had received huge funds – USD 16… pic.twitter.com/11wzfXvgmo
— ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2024
The complaint also states that tweets were shared on X (formerly Twitter) by former AAP worker Munish Kumar Raizada showing Kejriwal and Sikh leaders at a meeting in New York.
According to the letter, the complaint alleged that the tweets also confirmed that apart from attending public meetings, Kejriwal held a closed-doors meeting with pro-Khalistan Sikh leaders.
“Since the allegations have been made against Honourable chief minister and related to alleged funding of a political party, amounting to millions of dollars, from a terrorist organisation already banned in India, the electronic evidences adduced by the complainant requires investigation including forensic examination,” the letter to the Union home ministry stated.
In his letter, the LG has also referred to a letter Kejriwal wrote to Iqbal Singh in January 2014 stating that “the Delhi government has already recommended to the President the release of Professor [Devinder Pal Singh] Bhullar and would be working on other issues including formation of SIT, etc.”
Bhullar is serving life imprisonment in the 1993 Delhi bomb blast case.
The LG’s recommendation comes a day ahead of a hearing in which the Supreme Court may consider interim bail for Kejriwal due to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking to The Wire, AAP chief national spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said that the LG’s move shows the BJP is “rattled”.
“The same allegation had been made in 2022. They are clearly rattled. They are definitely losing Delhi and Punjab and this is a clear sign that they are losing,” she said.
In February 2022, Union home minister Amit Shah had assured then-Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi that he will look into the matter of alleged support being received by the AAP from Sikhs for Justice.
Channi in a letter claimed he had received another letter from the group which shows that it was in constant touch with the AAP and had supported the party in the 2017 Punjab elections as well as in the 2022 assembly elections, which the Congress subsequently lost.
“I want to assure you that no one will be allowed to play with the unity and integrity of the country. The government of India has taken the matter very seriously and I myself will look into the matter deeply,” Shah said in the letter, according to a report in PTI.
In March 2022, the Delhi high court dismissed a PIL seeking a high-level inquiry against the AAP and Kejriwal that alleged that they have links with pro-Khalistani separatists.
