Continuing its offensive against Arun Jaitley, AAP on Wednesday alleged that Jaitley, in his capacity as President of DDCA in 2011, had pressurised the then Police Commissioner to close an investigation involving a cricket club of a private bank.
The party released two letters, purportedly written by Jaitley, to former Delhi Police Commissioner B K Gupta and then Special Commissioner Ranjit Narayan, requesting them to fairly deal with the matter and close the case since DDCA has done no wrong.
The party also renewed its demand for Jaitley’s resignation in the wake of the fresh disclosures. The letter to Gupta is dated October 27, 2011 while the one written to Narayan is dated May 5, 2012.
Senior AAP leader Ashutosh claimed that the letters punctured the Union Finance Minister’s repeated assertions that he was in no way connected to any wrongdoing in the Delhi and District Cricket Association, which he headed from 1999 to 2013.
Reacting to the allegations, BJP Spokesperson GVL Narsimha Rao asked as to what was wrong in Jaitley writing a letter to the police commissioner.
“He was not even in power so the charge does not stick.” In the letter to Narayan, Jaitley is quoted as writing that “some persons have been repeatedly approaching Delhi Police with complaints in relation to the identity of the Syndicate Bank Cricket Club.
“The complaints are completely unsubstantiated and do not disclose any offense. Certain office bearers of DDCA are feeling harassed by repeated questioning in this regard. I would request you to look into this matter so that it can be fairly dealt with and closed since the DDCA has done no wrong.”
When contacted DDCA said the club is under them and that it currently falls in the “institutional” category. “There are two types of clubs namely institutional and private. While a private club receives a subsidy, an institutional does not and that is the broad difference between the two,” a DDCA official said.