Arvind Kejriwal said the ED didn't find a single penny despite a raid that lasted 16 hours.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today launched an attack on the BJP-led Centre over the Enforcement Directorate (ED) searches of premises of his personal assistant (PA) and others, saying all these actions were aimed at "crushing the Aam Aadmi Party".
In a post on X, Mr Kejriwal said the ED didn't find a single penny, no jewellery or illegal property papers despite a raid that lasted 16 hours.
"They raided Manish Sisodia's house, nothing was found there. They raided Satyendra Jain's place, nothing was found there. They raided Sanjay Singh's place, nothing was found there. Can ED enter anyone's house without any reason? Is this not sheer hooliganism?" Mr Kejriwal said.
"It is clear that all these raids and arrests are being done only out of political malice, to harass us, to crush the Aam Aadmi Party. It's been two years since they started investigating. Not a single new penny or any evidence was found," he added.
"This country is run by law and the Constitution. India is not anyone's inheritance. This country has 140 crore people. People will never tolerate this kind of hooliganism," the Chief Minister said.
Earlier today, AAP leader and Delhi minister Atishi today also slammed the ED raids on party members' homes, and accused the BJP-led Centre of trying to "scare and silence" the party using probe agencies.
The ED searched premises of Mr Kejriwal's personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and others as part of a probe into charges that bribes generated from "irregularities" in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) tendering process were routed as election funds to the AAP.
"Yesterday, I posted on Twitter about doing a big expose on the ED today. In response, to threaten AAP and silence the party, the ED has been raiding the residences of people related to the Aam Aadmi Party since 7 am today," Atishi said.
"This is the way the BJP is trying to threaten the AAP and intimidate its leaders to suppress their voices. I would like to tell the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and their agencies that AAP is not scared of their threats," she said.
Atishi claimed that despite an investigation of two years, ED has not been able to recover anything.
"For the past two years, AAP leaders have been threatened like this. In the name of 'liquor scam', investigating agencies CBI and ED have been raiding AAP leaders now and then in Delhi. But despite such investigations for nearly two years, ED has not been able to find anything," she said.
She recalled how many accused, witnesses, and government witnesses have come forward and told that they were pressured to record their statements.
Responding to her, Union Minister and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi launched a sharp attack on the AAP and Mr Kejriwal, ramping up the bitter spat between the two parties over alleged corruption in the city's liquor excise policy and the water development authority.
An apoplectic Ms Lekhi held Prime Minister Narendra Modi up as an ideal for Mr Kejriwal to follow, declaring PM Modi had (when he was Gujarat Chief Minister) "sat for 12 hours answering questions"; the reference was to PM Modi being questioned by a special team investigating the 2002 Gujarat riots.
"That is how you face... instead of drama and corruption like Kejriwal," Ms Lekhi thundered.