TIA NEWS / /
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said that the case of Delhi District Cricket Association, DDCA, raised by the AAP led Delhi government, is part of propaganda to deflect attention from corruption in city government. In a Facebook post, Mr Jaitley said, he left DDCA cricket administration in 2013 and by referring to some facts of 2014 and 2015, he cannot be implicated in the case. Describing the allegation as unfounded, such as escalation of cost of construction of a stadium, he said, when work expands, cost escalates. He said, a brand new 42 thousand capacity world class stadium was constructed by a public sector body, EPIL, at a cost of around 114 crores rupees. At the same time, the UPA Government renovated the Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium at a cost of over 900 crores rupees and Dhyan Chand stadium at a cost of over 600 crores rupees.
The Minister said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, seems to believe in untruth and defamation and uses indecent language. He said, the Chief Minister used unacceptable adjectives against the Prime Minister and also questioned the purpose of the search and tried to divert attention by linking it to the Delhi Cricket body rather than alleged corruption of the official.
Later talking to media, Mr. Jaitley said people of Delhi must be regretting electing a government which thrives on controversies and does nothing on ground. On Congress demand for JPC, the Minister said that the opposition party is making a mockery of the system of JPC by asking it on a private club.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kejriwal questioned why the Finance Minister is running away from investigations. In a series of tweets, the Chief Minister said allegations against Mr. Jaitley are serious and therefore he should either resign or be removed to enable independent probe.
Earlier in the day, the AAP alleged irregularities in DDCA during the tenure of Union Arun Jaitley as its President. Speaking to media party leader Raghav Chadha said huge non- transparent payments were made to phoney companies in the development of cricket stadium.
CPI(M) also demanded a fair and credible investigation into alleged irregularities in DDCA. In a tweet, party General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury said the charges in the matter are serious and truth must come out.
On the other hand, DDCA today again strongly refuted AAP’s allegations of financial bunglings by Finance Minister and its former chief Arun Jaitley. DDCA working president Chetan Chauhan said the charges were completely baseless.
Mr Chauhan said Mr. Jaitley had in fact worked for the betterment of cricket in general and made the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium into a world class facility.