New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Raaj Kumar Anand, who served as the social welfare minister in the Arvind Kejriwal Cabinet, tendered his resignation from his post on Wednesday (April 10). He also announced his resignation from the primary membership of the AAP. This marks the first resignation from the Arvind Kejriwal government following the Delhi CM’s arrest on March 21. Anand expressed his reason for resigning, stating, “AAP was born to fight corruption but today the party is stuck in a swamp of corruption. It has become difficult for me to work on the minister’s post. I resigned from the post of minister and from the party as I can’t connect my name with this corruption.”
Anand, who was holding various portfolios including Social Welfare, alleged that there was no Dalit among the top leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He also took a swipe at Arvind Kejriwal who is in Tihar jail after being remanded in judicial custody in an excise policy-linked money laundering case and has failed to get any relief from the Delhi High Court. “From the Jantar Mantar, Arvind Kejriwal had said that the country will change once politics changes. The politics hasn’t changed but the politician has changed,” Anand said.
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The Enforcement Directorate on November 3, 2023, had raided Raaj Kumar Anand as part of a money laundering investigation. The searches went on for about 23 hours in which a dozen premises, including that of the minister in the Civil Lines area of the national capital, were being searched.
The investigation stems from a charge sheet filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on charges of false declarations in imports for customs evasion of more than Rs 7 crore apart from international hawala transactions.
A local court recently took cognisance of the DRI prosecution complaint after which the ED filed a PMLA case against Anand and some others.
Anand, 57, is an MLA from the Patel Nagar Vidhan Sabha constituency. He won the 2020 Delhi Assembly Election from the Patel Nagar seat by defeating Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Pravesh Ratn with a margin of over 30,000 votes.
He became the Delhi Cabinet minister in November 2022. He was also having additional charge of Labour and Employment, SC and ST, Land and Building, Cooperative and Gurudwara Elections departments.
Before entering politics, he had a successful business in the sale of Rexine leather. Alongside his business endeavours, he was actively involved in social work and founded the Anandpath Foundation aimed at improving the lives of underprivileged individuals.
In 2011, Anand became a part of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement led by Anna Hazare, where Arvind Kejriwal played a prominent role. Subsequently, he joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Kejriwal.
According to information from his LinkedIn profile, the 57-year-old politician worked as a child labourer in a lock factory in Aligarh to support his early education. He later completed his MA degree by giving tuitions.
On Anand’s resignation, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh alleged that the BJP was using the ED and the CBI to “break our ministers and MLAs”. Singh said that earlier the BJP used to call Anand corrupt “when a raid was conducted against him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) but now the party will welcome him into its fold with garlands”.
Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that Anand may have been threatened to quit AAP. “Time and again we said that the intention behind arresting Arvind Kejriwal was to break the party and governments of Delhi and Punjab. Many of our colleagues will feel that we hate Raaj Kumar (Anand) and will call him dishonest and cheater. We will not say any such thing….”Not everyone is Sanjay Singh. I believe that he was scared,” Bharadwaj said.
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