Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva on Wednesday said the anti corruption branch registering an FIR against former ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain in the alleged classroom construction scam marks a decisive moment in the citizens’ fight against the former AAP government’s corruption.

Sachdeva stated that people of Delhi and the BJP demand that the ACB not only probes the role of Sisodia and Jain in the classroom scam, but also the alleged role of the then CM Arvind Kejriwal as well.

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According to Sachdeva, as soon as Kejriwal came to power in 2015, he allegedly began laying the foundation for various corrupt practices and scams.

He said that it was back then, the BJP organization had started raising its voice against these alleged irregularities of the previous AAP government.

The Delhi BJP chief noted that in 2015-16, the then Kejriwal government allocated a budget of Rs. 2,892 crore for the construction of 12,748 classrooms across city’s government schools.

He further said that this allocation meant that the cost of constructing a single classroom came out to approximately Rs. 24.86 lakh, whereas, according to CPWD manual estimates, the construction cost should have been around Rs. 5 lakh per classroom, he claimed.

BJP leaders and the office bearers had exposed this scam, and Kapil Mishra, Harish Khurana, and Neelkant Bakshi had even lodged complaints with the Anti-Corruption Branch and the Lokayukta.

However, the preliminary investigation dragged on for 7–8 years due to a lack of cooperation from the Delhi Government’s Education Department, Sachdeva added.

As per Sachdeva, ACB’s preliminary findings revealed that contracts for classroom construction were awarded to contractors close to the AAP without following proper tender procedures.

It is further said that semi-permanent classrooms (with an average lifespan of 30 years) were contracted at the rates meant for permanent classrooms (lifespan of 75 years), indicating clear corruption.

The findings also say that in all projects, the construction was not completed on time, leading to increased costs that were approved without following due process.

Sachdeva further mentioned that the ACB findings so far reveal that during 2022-23, the Chief Technical Examiner submitted a report on the classroom scam to the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, but the Kejriwal government allegedly never made the report public.

The findings also point out that cost escalations ranging from 17 per cent to as high as 90 per cent were recorded due to collusion between the government and contractors, with no satisfactory explanation provided.

Sachdeva has expressed hope that Sisodia and Jain’s roles will soon be fully exposed and that arrests will follow.