Delhi Diary/By A K B Krishnan/Gulf Times Correspondent

Even his bitterest rivals will concede that when it comes to articulation, be it in English or in Hindi, there are few peers for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. His many speeches in the Rajya Sabha have kept the entire House in rapt attention, except of course when the opposition was in no mood to listen to anybody, including the Chair, as had been witnessed over these past two weeks. Jaitley’s blogs - and he is quite prolific at it - are widely read and commented upon, most of it in the affirmative.
Some economists even within the ruling dispensation are not exactly comfortable with Jaitley’s handling of the finance portfolio but even they agree his understanding of the nuances of the law is second to none. Politicians cutting across party lines know that taking on Jaitley could be a hazardous proposition because more often than not the force of the argument is with him.
But Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is not the kind of person to be swayed by such considerations. Over the past three years he has mastered the art of “shoot and scoot”, so reputations don’t matter to him much. He will throw mud at whoever he chooses in the hope that some of it will stick. But no issue if it doesn’t either because he would have already moved on to his next target. Sharad Pawar, Salman Kurshid, Shiela Dixit, Kapil Sibal, Smriti Irani, Nitin Gadkari, Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung and Delhi police chief Bhim Sain Bassi are only some of the people who would endorse this.
So when sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the office of the chief minister’s principal secretary, Rajendra Kumar, in search of documents connected with allegations of corruption against the officer, Kejriwal immediately resorted to his favourite pastime. He first called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “coward” and a “psychopath” alleging that the raid was carried out at his behest.
When the reaction to his outburst elicited immediate all-round condemnation, Kejriwal started throwing dirt at Jaitley. Everyone felt, nay knew, that it was not going to stick. Jaitley himself rubbished Kejriwal’s statement saying he would only reply to specific charges. So the next day Kejriwal got his lieutenants to make those specific charges.  
All those charges related to the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) of which Jaitley was the president for 13 years from 1999. Apart from “huge financial bungling”, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) spokespersons also found fault with the selection process for Delhi’s cricket team apparently hinting Jaitley also had a hand in it.  
Fact is, almost each one of these charges has been already raised several times before, none more than Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kirti Azad, and the Congress-led government of prime minister Manmohan Singh had even got the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) to probe the matter. “Old whines in new AAP bottles,” is how Hindustan Times headlined the Kejriwal ‘expose’.
While SFIO did find “23 instances of serious financial irregularities”, it did not point the finger at Jaitley because it found the president of the association was a non-executive, decorative post and he did not have any role in day-to-day running of the club. In his blog Jaitley wrote: “No personal allegation was ever made against me nor did I ever feel the need of contradicting it.”  
But the Kejriwal attack was too much for Jaitley to bear. He has now gone to court with civil and criminal defamation charges against Kejriwal and five of his minions. The civil case is for monetary compensation of Rs100mn and the criminal one attracts imprisonment up to two years. (Jaitley however did not drag party colleague Azad to court but left it to party president Amit Shah to handle him.)  
Be that as it may, while Jaitley answered most of the charges thrown at him by the AAP, it still left many wondering how a man of such sagacity could have presided over a club for such a long period with so much bungling and impropriety taking place without his knowledge. In comparison to the multi-billion rupee scams that shook the previous Congress regime these may look miniscule but Jaitley could possibly be kicking himself now for not keeping a tighter leash on the affairs of DDCA.  
There are at least five serious charges against Rajendra Kumar but Kejriwal’s contention was that the CBI was raiding his office in search of files related to DDCA and that Kumar was just an excuse. Within a couple of hours Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha that the chief minister’s office was neither entered into nor searched.
Jaitley knew what he was talking because he had already got confirmation on this fact from the CBI which said all searches were conducted in the presence of independent witnesses who could vouch for the veracity of its claim. But it is not in AAP’s DNA to withdraw and apologise. In fact it went a step further demanding a privilege motion against Jaitley for trying to “mislead” the House.  
The Congress Party, faced with corruption charges of its own against its top leadership, joined issue with Jaitley and demanded a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) and wanted Jaitley to step down till this panel cleared his name. But Jaitley kept his cool saying he shall answer in parliament any issue raised in parliament and that he was ready to fight the political and legal battles separately outside.
There was talk that the CBI had not only videographed the raid but also had added corroboration from the CCTV in the corridors outside Kejriwal’s office that its officers had not entered the chief minister’s office. So both the AAP and the Congress quietly dropped their respective demands. Congress probably had more than one reason to stay quiet because it feared other skeletons may tumble out of the cricket cupboard making its already imperilled life still more difficult.
But Kejriwal had not yet finished though. He tweeted that a CBI officer had told him the agency had been asked by Modi to target opposition leaders in a bid to malign their reputations. Now if this is not skullduggery, then what is?  
There was no way anyone could verify this statement. Even if Kejriwal were to make the name of the officer public (as demanded by the CBI), there was no chance he would admit he said so. And what was the method of communication from Modi? Surely the prime minister would not have written to the CBI director to do his bidding! And how senior is this unknown officer who confided in Kejriwal to have known what transpired between the PMO and the CBI, if at all anything?
Was Kejriwal trying to deflect the focus from the alleged wrongdoings of his secretary by throwing wild charges, as Jaitley claimed? In this Kejriwal’s track record as chief minister tends to add weight to Jaitley’s contention. It is fine to defend relatives, friends, colleagues and subordinates if you find them being wronged. Any normal person would do it. But Kejriwal wanted to prove he is more than normal, in a sense of course, by defending anyone within his fold without bothering to check if he/she was being falsely challenged. He had to eat his own words not once or twice but on three occasions when cases involving senior members/ministers of his party led to their resignations.
Rajendra Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of 1989 vintage, is also Kejriwal’s batch-mate at IIT, Kharagpur some 25 years ago. Standing by the side of an old friend is expected of anyone. But according to the CBI Kumar is facing charges of conspiracy, criminal misconduct and abuse of official position. Raids were conducted in 14 places where Kumar apparently had connections. One of them was his office which happened to be adjacent to the one occupied by the Delhi chief minister.  
In fact the first complaint against Kumar was filed by none other than an AAP volunteer, Om Prakash Chauhan, who in 2013 charged the officer had floated proxy companies and given them government contracts without tenders or verification. Earlier this year Transparency International wrote to several senior government functionaries, Kejriwal included, that Kumar’s record may be tainted. Kejriwal’s former friends and fellow-travellers like Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav had also flagged the issue. But for reasons known to few Kejriwal went ahead and appointed him his principal secretary.
The CBI believes it has an iron-clad case against the officer. If so, indictment of Kumar is certain. But those who think it might be one more blow to Kejriwal will probably have to think again because by then he would have other shadows to chase. But if after all this churning there is improved administration of cricket, for which there is a crying need, perhaps Kejriwal can rightly claim to have contributed his bit.