An old video of Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal mocking the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) for falsely naming Sanjay Singh in a chargesheet is viral online as a recent video. BOOM found that the video is from May 2023 and Kejriwal did not issue a statement of this nature at the time of Singh's arrest by the ED.
Following a day-long search of his official residence on October 4, Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh was arrested by the ED and placed in custody for 10 days in connection with the liquor scam case. According to the prosecution complaint by the ED, Singh was named by Dinesh Arora, a businessman accused in the same case. Arora claims he arranged party funds amounting to Rs 82 lakh from several liquor businessman on the behest of Singh.
The video of Arvind Kejriwal shows him talking about how the Prime Minister's office directed the ED to include Singh's name wrongfully in the chargesheet. Kejriwal continues and says that when Singh challenged the ED, the agency "wet its pants".
AAP's Uttar Pradesh wing shared the video on X (formerly Twitter) the day Singh was arrested with the caption, "ED wet its pants due to Sanjay Singh's notice."
(Original text in Hindi: "संजय सिंह के नोटिस से ED की पैंट गीली हो जाती है।")
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The post is also being shared on Facebook with another caption, "Morning - Kejriwal says ED wets its pants out of fear of Sanjay Singh. Evening - ED took Sanjay Singh to dry his pants."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that Kejriwal's clip is from May this year when he mocked the ED for wrongfully naming Singh in one of the references in a chargesheet filed in connection with the liquor case.
We ran a keyword search on AAP's official YouTube channel to look for this video and found that it had been shared on May 8, 2023 with the title 'Sanjay Singh's notice has made ED wet its pants'.
The press conference was held on May 8 to discuss Delhi's transport system which is also when Kejriwal addressed the liquor scam. The full version can be seen below. He begins talking about the accusations at 7:36 of the video and the portion of the viral clip begins from the 11:38 mark of the video.
We then looked for news reports about Sanjay Singh's notice to the ED and found that in an earlier chargesheet in the same case, the ED had inadvertently included Sanjay Singh's name in one of the four references against him, instead of Delhi's former excise commissioner Rahul Singh. The agency had filed a petition to rectify this error and also mentioned that the three other references against Singh still remained.
Singh issued a notice demanding a public apology from ED’s Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra and Assistant Director Jogender Singh. The notice also stated that “the ED’s associates, agents and employees have attempted to tarnish and mutilate the AAP leader’s public image and have attempted to otherwise popularise a perverse, false, motivated, wild, malicious and baseless campaign against his alleged involvement in Delhi Excise Policy.”
In a statement to ANI on April 22, Singh said, "It is highly regrettable that an agency like the ED, which is supposed to be impartial, has resorted to such baseless allegations against me."
The liquor scam case pertains to the now-scrapped excise policy case that allegedly enabled AAP members to receive kickbacks from liquor vendors. The policy was first introduced in November 2021 with the agenda of curbing corruption, black marketing, and increasing revenue by privatising the sector. It was later scrapped in July 2022 over allegations of corruption. Singh's arrest follows two other high-profile arrests made in the case-- AAP's communication-in-charge, Vijay Nair and deputy CM of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, have both been arrested and still remain in jail.
We also looked for Arvind Kejriwal's statement regarding Sanjay Singh's recent arrest and found this post on X made from his official account on October 4. A rough translation in English reads, "Sanjay Singh's arrest is completely illegal. It displays Modi ji's nervousness. They will arrest many more opposition leaders till the (2024) elections."
In a recent press interaction, Kejriwal also spoke about how opposition leaders and high net worth individuals were being targeted with false accusations and how an environment of fear was being instilled in the country. "They have investigated us thoroughly and did not find anything. These liquor scam allegations are fake. They (ED) don't have any evidence." he said. While denying all accusations against his party members, he also claimed that all statements were being taken forcefully.
Sanjay Singh also recorded a statement a few hours before his arrest and said, "I have been constantly speaking about the corruption in Narendra Modi's government and the scams run by Adani. I have registered complaints with the ED, but no investigation was conducted. And today suddently, the ED has reached my house. They conducted raids the whole day, searched everything, but did not find anything. Despite this, I am being arrested forcefully." Watch his entire statement here:
