Politics escalates over AAP’s ‘advertisement scam’

NEW DELHI: In mid-December, Delhi LG had ordered Chief Secretary to recover Rs 97 crore from Aam Admi Party (AAP) for political advertisements. Now, after three weeks, the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) has issued a notice to Aam Aadmi Party supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, to pay up to Rs 164 crore of government funds allegedly spent on party advertisements. The party has been asked to pay within 10 days.
A day after the DIP’s notice, AAP responded in an official statement, “At the outset, it is submitted that demand of approximately Rs 164 crore is arbitrary, perverse and contrary to facts and provisions of law and extant policies” and to “provide the copies of those ads whose cost you seek to recover from us”.
After this development, politics in the national capital started boiling. While targeting Delhi CM, BJP working President Virendra Sachdeva said: “For highlighting his face, Arvind Kejriwal was giving advertisements to the newspaper and was doing publicity on television and money spent on this was of Delhi people. I want to ask Arvind Kejriwal in how many days you are going to deposit the money?”
“The hard-earned money of the residents of Delhi is being wasted on advertisements by the AAP government. We have been saying for a long time that this government is a government of fake advertisements. Now, Rs 163 crore shall be recovered from the AAP. Who gave them permission to spend much money on ads?” said BJP MP Manoj Tiwari.
On the other hand, AAP accused the BJP that it is behind this order and said BJP is using bureaucracy to target AAP leaders. While addressing a press conference, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said: “The BJP has, over the last seven years, been unconstitutionally exercising control over the city’s bureaucracy through the L-G. Today, Alice Vaz, an IAS officer, is threatening Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for payment of over Rs 163 crore, under pressure from the BJP.”
“Wanted officers to do work for citizens, but the BJP wants them only to target ministers so that they don’t do their work,” the AAP leader added.
According to agency reports in December 2022, DIP had directed AAP to pay Rs 42.26 crore in 2017 and pay the pending amount of Rs 54.87 crore to the advertising agencies within 30 days.On 20December, a letter by LG cited recommendations of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA), which had ruled that government funds were misused for advertisements.