Sisodia used money to send biryani to Shaheen Bagh, says BJP’s Parvesh Verma over OSD arrest in ‘bribery’ case

It seems that the BJP leaders do not want to lose any distant opportunity to make use of Shaheen Bagh for reaping political benefits. Bharatiya Janata Party’s member of Parliament Parvesh Verma on Friday, February 7 taunted Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia over the arrest of an OSD in a case of alleged corruption. He once again mentioned Shaheen Bagh and ‘biryani’ saying that the money was being used by the Aam Aadmi Party leader for “taking biryani” to Shaheen Bagh.

The BJP MP said, “This is not for the first time in five years that such a complaint has been made. We have complained earlier too. OSD is just a title. The title’s owner is our deputy chief minister. This bribery money goes inside his pocket and is used for sending biryani to Shaheen Bagh,” as reported by the news agency ANI.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said that traders were being targeted by the Kejriwal government.

BJP's Delhi unit tweeted: "OSD to Manish Sisodia was arrested by the CBI while accepting a bribe of Rs 2 lakh in GST case. He was posted in Sisodia's office since 2015. The total amount, however, was fixed at Rs 10 lakh. The Aam Aadmi Party government has been exploiting such traders, but Kejriwal has always maintained his silence."

These comments come a day after the Election Commission had issued a notice to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for stating that that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal offered biryani to Shaheen Bagh protesters.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister had made this remark during a speech in Delhi on February 1. The poll panel has asked him to respond to the notice by 5 pm Friday.

Earlier on Friday, Sisodia had asked for stringent action against the Goods and Services Tax (GST) officer who is attached to his office and was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case of alleged corruption.

Sisodia wrote on Twitter, “I’ve learnt that a GST officer has been arrested by the CBI for taking bribe. The agency must take strict action against him. I myself have caught such corrupt officials in the past five years.”

On Thursday, CBI arrested Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's OSD Gopal Krishna Madhav on the basis of information provided by a middleman who allegedly collected bribes from transporters on his behalf, officials said on Friday.

The arrest of Madhav was made by the agency in an operation on Thursday evening, ahead of the crucial Delhi elections, after a middleman Dheeraj Gupta, nabbed on February 5, claimed he was collecting money on behalf of the officer.

Sources said the agency has not found Sisodia's involvement in the case so far.

"CBI has arrested Dheeraj Gupta, private person, who is a resident of Delhi and Gopal Krishna Madhav, Goods and Services Tax Officer in Trade and Taxes Department of Government of NCT Delhi who is also the OSD to Deputy CM of Delhi in a bribery case of Rs. 2.26 lakh," CBI spokesperson said.

During the questioning, Gupta claimed that he was collecting the bribe for Madhav, a Delhi Andaman and Nicobar Island Civil Service officer in trade and tax department, officials said.

"It was alleged that the private person (Gupta) was acting as a middleman on behalf of some GST department officers including for the public servant (Madhav) for collecting illegal gratification from transporters for not charging GST from them," the spokesperson said.