Kejriwal skips ED questioning again, says summons issued at behest of pol rivals

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday skipped the second summon issued by the ED, alleging they were issued at the behest of political rivals who wish to silence the voice of the opposition in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Kejriwal was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in a Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case on Thursday. The chief minister left for an undisclosed location for a 10-day Vipassana meditation course on Wednesday.

Kejriwal had sent his reply to the ED on Wednesday. In it, he said the summons do not specify whether he was being called as “a witness or a suspect” or as the “chief minister, Delhi, or the Aam Aadmi Party’s national convener”.

He said the fresh summons -- issued on December 18 -- should be revoked, withdrawn and recalled.

‘The timing of your summons leaves much to desire and strengthens my belief that the summons being sent to me are not based upon any objective or rational yardstick but for extraneous considerations at the behest of political rivals who wish to silence the voice of opposition to the ruling dispensation at the Centre to create sensational news in the final few months leading up to the Parliamentary elections in early to mid-2024,’ read the reply.

Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is a part of the opposition INDIA bloc, formed to take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.

‘On the eve of my departure for Vipassana meditation course which has been widely published and largely circulated all over the media in the country as well as officially announced, to my utter dismay and concern, I have received the subject summons,’ Kejriwal said in his reply.

Earlier, Kejriwal was summoned by the ED on November 2 but he skipped the questioning alleging the notice was “illegal” and “politically motivated”

He said the ED served the fresh summons without responding

to the issues raised by him in his previous reply. ‘Your summons appears to be a fishing and roving enquiry. In similar circumstances, where individuals are neither informed about the case details nor the capacity in which they are being summoned by the Enforcement Directorate, high courts have declared such summons of the Enforcement Directorate invalid and quashed the summons,’ the reply said.

CM Kejriwal stressed that he is “holding a sensitive constitutional post as an elected leader and incumbent chief minister of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi”.