Punjab polls: Kejriwal accuses Amarinder of having 'ill-gotten money' in Swiss bank accounts

AAP's national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal accused Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh and his family of having "ill-gotten money" stashed in Swiss bank accounts, a charge strongly rejected by the former chief minister.

Kejriwal, who is on a Punjab tour in connection with the upcoming assembly polls, alleged that the entire family of Amarinder stashed "huge ill-gotten" money in these bank accounts when he was the chief minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007.

However, Amarinder hit back at Kejriwal, accusing the Delhi CM of acting as Union finance minister Arun Jaitley's "paid agent" and ridiculed his attempt to once again rake up the "fabricated and politically motivated charges" of the existence of Swiss bank accounts in the names of his (Amarinder's) family members by releasing "old and unauthenticated documents".

Addressing a gathering on the second day of his 11-day tour, Kejriwal made public what he claimed to be the details of bank accounts of Parneet Kaur, a former Union minister, and her son Raninder Singh, who had allegedly opened bank accounts in Swiss bank in 2005, when Amarinder was the chief minister of Punjab.

Kejriwal alleged that they had also formed a trust to transfer their ill-gotten money.

The Delhi CM challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, if he had the "will and guts" to bring out the black money stashed in these foreign bank accounts by Amarinder and his family.

Kejriwal told the media that it must look at the people who have been raising their both hands against demonetisation instead of reporting "false facts and misleading reports" that people are happy due to demonetisation.

Countering Kejriwal, Amarinder rejected as "baseless and nothing but a publicity stunt" the "re-release" of documents that had no foundation and whose veracity even the central and state governments had failed to prove despite having the entire official machinery at their disposal.

He said the alleged account numbers which the AAP leader says are held by his family members were the same old numbers which his colleague Ashish Khetan had released in March 2016, and which he had already showed to be a "sham". Kejriwal alleged "Badal and Company", who came to power after Amarinder, have "ruined" Punjab completely.

"Who is having biggest chunk of black money in Punjab?" Kejriwal asked the crowd and they shouted, "Badal Parivar -Badal Parivar". Kejriwal again questioned Modi's "guts" saying he should have gone after Badals, who have the "biggest chunk of black money", instead of opting for demonetisation to "harass" common man.

Kejriwal said the Badal government is not champion to the causes of the Sikh community because it has proved "big failure" to get justice for the Sikhs massacred in 1984 anti-Sikhs riots.

The AAP national convener took a dig at Amarinder's announcement of giving smart phones and described it as the "biggest joke" on the people of Punjab.

"Leave apart smart phones, Congress and Akalis may distribute even 'chitta' (drugs) along with smart phones to woo the people of Punjab who have already decided to reject them in forthcoming elections," Kejriwal alleged at Gidderbaha.