CBI raids Manish Sisodia: Hours after the CBI raided the home of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal congratulated the nation for a news report that American newspaper New York Times published on the changes in Delhi’s education policy and the ground reality since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power.
Sisodia’s house, along with 21 other locations in the city, were raided by the CBI on allegations of corruption in the implementation of the AAP government’s new Excise Policy. A CBI probe into the matter was recommended by L-G VK Saxena in July this year.
In his eight-minute-long address, Kejriwal mentioned the raids only a couple of times, and focused largely on the New York Times story, and the campaign he had launched on Wednesday “to make India the number 1 country in the world”.
“I want to give you some good news today. The US is the most powerful and richest country in the world. The New York Times is the biggest newspaper in that country. In Yesterday’s NYT, the frontpage carried a story on Delhi’s education model. It says that there is an education revolution underway at Delhi government schools. It says that the schools are improving, that children from private schools are shifting to government ones. This is a matter of pride for all Indians. In this story, the main photo on the frontpage is that of Manish Sisodia. This is something every world leader wants,” Kejriwal said.
Talking about Sisodia, Kejriwal said, “Today, Manish Sisodia was declared the best education minister in the world. But the CBI is raiding him. There will be several roadblocks in our mission to become the best country in the world. This is not the first raid on Manish Sisodia. There have been several false cases — against him, Satyendar Jain, and me. They will not find anything. Let the CBI do its job, they have orders from the top.”
Since it started campaigning for the elections in Delhi in 2013, improving the quality of schools and education has been the mainstay of Aam Aadmi Party’s politics. Kejriwal said that the acknowledgement by NYT was a matter of pride for the whole nation.
“Manish Sisodia is the best education minister in the country. I can’t remember the last time a positive story about India made it to the front page of the NYT. The last story about India I remember was about the high number of Covid deaths in the country,” he said.
Speaking about the campaign, Kejriwal added that the party was launching a phone number which people can give a missed call on to become a part of the mission.
“Just day before yesterday, we announced that we will launch a mission to make India No 1. That has started. It will take time, but it will happen. We will work together to make it happen. India got its Independence 75 years ago but people are asking as to why we are still not at the top. If we keep voting for the same old parties, this will never happen. We will never rise… Today, I am launching a number – 9510001000. All those who want to join the mission to make India Number 1, give a missed call on this number. Spread the word, tell people and bring them along,” he said.
