Congress seeks JPC probe into Jaitley’s DDCA ‘misdeeds’

The Congress on Wednesday pounced on the claim of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that ''gross financial irregularities'' have taken place in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) and demanded the dismissal of union finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Since Jaitley headed the DDCA at the time of the alleged misappropriation, the leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, said an independent probe should be conducted by a joint parliamentary committee to find out whether the finance minister had anything to do with what seems like a scam from the Delhi government's investigation report.

The DDCA controversy was kicked up by Kejriwal after the CBI raided his principal secretary's office on Tuesday morning. Kejriwal said the real intent of the raid was to whisk away the files that proved the DDCA scam.

"Why is Jaitleyji so scared of DDCA probe? What is his role in DDCA scam?'' Kejriwal tweeted on Tuesday.

While the Trinamool Congress fully backed Kejriwal, the Congress treaded a cautious path on Tuesday, focussing on its own issues like its troubles with the governor of Arunachal Pradesh and attack on the ruling BJP over what they perceive as ''political vendetta.''

On Wednesday, Azad along with his fellow Congressman and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge and Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken addressed the media, displaying the documents of the Delhi government's investigation as evidence against. Jaitley.

The report points out several embezzlements - from spiking up the spending of a stadium renovation from Rs24 crore to Rs114 crore, to handing over contracts to companies run by DDCA office bearers and to wrongfully lending money to private companies. All this, according to the report, happened at the time Jaitley was the chairman of DDCA.

The Congress chose to attack Kejriwal as well.

''Congress also calls upon Arvind Kejriwal to stop the blame game and get down to real work to nail corruption,'' Maken said.

Azad cast suspicion as to why Kejriwal ''has taken no action'' since last month when the report was handed to him.

 Azad said since all the first class investigation agencies - Enforcement Directorate, Revenue Intelligence, Serious Fraud Investigation Office - directly report to Jaitley, only a ''joint parliamentary committee'' can investigate this matter impartially.