Arvind Kejriwal
22 October 2012. India Against Corruption (IAC) leader Arvind Kejriwal called the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi for a public debate. Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh said that Kejriwal doesn’t have the stature to challenge the PM or the Congress President. Singh has dismissed Kejriwal’s challenge and dared him for an open debate. Singh had posed 27 questions on Saturday and asked why none of the websites of Kejriwal’s NGOs carried details of individual and corporate donors, and if NGO Kabir received $172,000 in 2005 and $197,000 in 2008 from Ford Foundation. Kejriwal tweeted: “We had put some questions to Robert Vadra and the Prime Minister. Let them answer first. Then, we will answer all questions from Digvijaya Singh. I request Singh to encourage Mrs Gandhi, Prime Minister or Rahul Gandhi to come for a public debate.” Arvind Kejriwal held a press conference today to condemn the police brutality on IAC activists. At this press conference a former IAC member and Anna supporter, Annie Kohli, asked Kejriwal to reveal his true ambitions to the public. He walked away without answering her but he later said “I haven’t met Annie in the past. I think she was sent by somebody.” Kohli said that her group would protest against Kejriwal at Jantar Mantar. At the conference Kejriwal took on Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda over the land dealings between DLF and Robert Vadra and attacked the state government over the transfer of senior bureaucrat Ashok Khemka. He also challenged senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh to have public debate over the issue with another IAC member Kumar Vishwas. After Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid dared Kejriwal to go to Farrukhabad and return safely, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has come forward to protect him by deploying lathi-wielding farmers when he visits Farrukhabad on 1 November 2012. Rakesh Tikait, president of BKU said that Khurshid’s supporters were already attacking IAC supporters in Farrukhabad and therefore protection is necessary for Kejriwal. Kejriwal also mounted a fresh attack on the BJP president Nitin Gadkari after NDTV news channel found that Ideal Road Builders (IRB) which allegedly got benefits when Gadkari was Public Works Department minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government between 1995 and 1999 later returned the favour by giving him a loan of $ 30 million. Later, IRB invested in Gadkari’s Purti group in 2001. “I can accept equity from anyone. I am a friend of Mr Mhaiskar and many contractors are my friends… Purti has losses of Rs. 64 crore, Mr. Mhaiskar loaned me Rs. 165 crore from his company, and I have repaid Rs. 64 crore,” the channel quoted Gadkari as saying. The channel also raised questions about the investors of Purti group, which has eight group companies having interests in power, sugar, ethanol, alcohol, bio-diesel, among others. The channel found that many investor companies existed only on paper.
