Amid CBI Raids Against Sisodia, Fresh Showdown Over ‘Paid Promotion’ Allegations, AAP Fights Back with Sharp Retort

It was a politically charged day in the national capital that saw two parties faceoff over the CBI raids at the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s home with both parties fighting it out, throwing multiple allegations over both the raids and the New York Times article about the Delhi government schools.

While the politics initially brewed over the raids at Sisodia’s residence this morning with the Aam Aadmi Party dubbing it nothing but political vendetta, the BJP alleged that “blacklisted company were given licenses under AAP government’s new excise policy, which they accused was made to benefit the liquor mafia.”

BJP MP Gautam Gambhir claimed that the fear of getting exposed forced the Kejriwal government to withdraw the liquor policy soon after its implementation. AAP MP Sanjay Singh countered daring the BJP to actually ‘expose’ their claims about the Delhi government regarding the liquor excise policy.

The political showdown however quickly shifted to a debate over the New York Times article that hailed the Delhi government over the success of the public school model in the state. The BJP questioned how the same article was published in two international outlets at the same time with even the same pictures being used by both publications. BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla tweeted calling the whole thing a scam.

Kejriwal’s party hit back at the allegations by the BJP with the AAP MP Raghav Chadha saying, “No international papers have published news stories about any of the achievements made by the BJP till now. That’s the main reason why they are calling it a paid news.” Pointing out the technicalities, AAP MLA Saurabh Saurabh Bharadwaj said that the khaleej times had attributed the article that they published to the NYT where it was originally published. “BJP should have been happy that NYT has printed such good news about India, instead they are alleging that NYT printed this paid advertisement in their front page. They should have some knowledge about NYT that it is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world,” Bharadwaj said.

Responding to the CBI raids at Sisodia’s residence, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he was ‘proud of his Deputy CM’ and that his work made it to one of USA’s biggest newspapers and that more news stories of this kind must make it to many more global publications.

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