With Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann dismissing health minister Dr. Vijay Singla on corruption charges, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Tuesday termed it as diversionary tactics and said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) should order a CBI inquiry into charges of sale of party tickets for Assembly polls as nominations to the Rajya Sabha.

In a statement, SAD spokesman Maheshinder Singh Grewal said AAP is diverting attention from serious allegations of corruption against party supremo Arvind Kejriwal as well as failure to fulfill promises made to the people of Punjab with the sacking of a minister.

Grewal said it was shocking that AAP was treating governance of Punjab as an event management exercise. “Every time it faces the heat, it comes out with a diversionary tactic. This time, it has tried to wash away the serious allegations leveled against its convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal by sacking a minister on corruption charges,” he added.

Asserting that such knee-jerk reactions could not obfuscate the real issues, Grewal asked the CM to order a CBI inquiry into the charges of sale of assembly tickets as well as a collection of Rs 30 Crore each from businessmen for allocation of Rajya Sabha tickets to them. He said besides Kejriwal, the role of AAP Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha should also be probed in both these cases.

He said once a CBI probe was ordered into the charges of corruption, evidence from various quarters would be forthcoming.

“Corruption is rampant and there are also allegations of large-scale bribes being taken for postings and transfers which are done directly from Delhi. It seems rather than being a case of corruption alone, the failure to transfer the spoils to the AAP political masters in Delhi could also be the reason for the health minister’s ouster,” Grewal said.
He said the AAP government needs to come clean on this by ordering an independent inquiry into the entire incident by a Central agency or a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court”.

The Akali leader also asked the CM “to order a judicial probe into the issue of foreign funds received from highly controversial sources by AAP’s national leaders, including the party’s supremo Arvind Kejriwal”.

He said this was important in the light of allegations leveled in this context by the founding members of AAP as well as Members of Parliament of the party.