Despite CCRGA guidelines, AAP govt didn't deposit money spent on ads: BJP

New Delhi, Dec 20 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party's state working president Virendra Sachdeva, while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, welcomed the decision of the Lieutenant Governor who has written to the Delhi government ordering the ruling Aam Aadmi Party to deposit in the treasury around Rs 97 crore spent on advertisements.

Virendra Sachdeva, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, MP Manoj Tiwari addressed the joint press conference.

Sachdeva said "the BJP has been continuously saying for the last eight years that the Kejriwal government is a propaganda-based government, whose work is more visible on paper and advertisements but less on the ground."

He said that "nothing can be more unfortunate than the use of taxpayers' money on this which should be used for Delhi's development. But Kejriwal is doing it to put a shine on his face. Misusing government resources and exploiting them is the nature of the Aam Aadmi Party government."

"Today Chief Minister Kejriwal is calling the order of the Lieutenant Governor as another love letter to reduce the seriousness of the matter, but the truth is that this is not a love letter, it is a white paper of Kejriwal government's corruption", he added.

Targeting the AAP, Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said that on our demand, Lieutenant Governor V. K. Saxena asked the Director Vigilance to investigate the matter. After the vigilance report, the Lieutenant Governor has asked the Chief Secretary to recover this amount.

He said that in 2015, the Supreme Court had constituted a committee to prepare guidelines for advertisements for all governments in a similar matter. In 2016, this committee, whose name was Committee of Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA), issued guidelines. The same committee found that the Delhi government had violated the guidelines in advertisements worth about Rs 97 crore, 15 lakhs. That's why it was directed that this amount should be recovered from the Aam Aadmi Party. The AAP also went to court against this order but did not get any relief there, he added.

"Till 2016, the AAP government had misused Rs 97 crore, but even after this order the Kejriwal government continued to misuse advertisements. Today this amount will be at least Rs 400 crore. That's why this amount should be recovered from Aam Aadmi Party", he added.

Delhi BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said "Kejriwal did the work of shining his face with the government exchequer money but the limit was reached when despite the instructions by CCRGA, set up by the Supreme Court, Kejriwal did not deposit the amount but rather further spent it like water. Avoiding the allegations against him by calling it a love letter shows the carelessness and irresponsible attitude of Kejriwal as he has done the work of diverting the issues earlier also."

Tiwari said the "CCRGA had ordered on September 16, 2016 that the Aam Aadmi Party should pay Rs 42 crore, 26 lakh and 81,265 to the Delhi government and the remaining Rs 54 crore, 87 lakh 87,872 should be given directly to the agencies from the Aam Aadmi Party".