AAP claims Arun Jaitley pressurised police to drop cases against DDCA

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday fished out two letters written by Arun Jaitley when he was the President of the DDCA, to claim he had pressurised the Delhi Police top to drop cases against the cricket body. This provoked sharp reactions from the DDCA as well as the BJP—with both dismissing charges, and the former deciding to file defamation suits against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, Kirti Azad and other AAP leaders.

First letter was written by Jaitley as DDCA president on October 27, 2011 and another one on May 5, 2012. In the first, Jaitley argues about the Cricket Club of the Syndicate Bank and seeks personal attention of then Delhi Commissioner of Police SK Gupta. “I would request you to look into the matter and ensure that the matter is dealt with fairly and closed since the DDCA has done no wrong,” the 2011 letter reads.

The follow up letter in 2012 rues that “some persons” have been repeatedly approaching Delhi Police with “complaints in relation to the identity of the Syndicate Bank Cricket Club”. Calling those complaints “completely unsubstantiated”, Jaitley informs Special Commission Ranjeet Narayan that members of the DDCA are “feeling harassed by the repeated questioning in this regard” and argues for closure since the cricket body had done “no wrong”.

AAP leaders Ashutosh, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Dilip Pandey repeatedly emphasised in their press conference that this is conclusive proof about Jaitley “pressurising” the Delhi Police. Within hours, the BJP responded in a press conference. “Daily accusation and PC of AAP is a damp squib. Every morning they get up and say they have to be in media. They resort to spit-and-run tactics which lacks substance.

Congress, on the other hand, is bankrupt of ideas and jumps on any springboard to attack BJP,” said BJP secretary Siddharth Nath Singh. Adding further that the “Daily PC” is about “saving principle secretary”.