By calling Modi 'coward' and 'psychopath', Kejriwal has proven he's a fraud

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on December 15 exposed the weaker side of his personality, as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided his principal secretary Rajendra Kumar's office and other premises. By hurriedly over-reacting to the raids, Kejriwal not only proved himself wrong but also failed to maintain the decorum of his chair. All this may go to embarrass him and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the long run.

The raids on Kumar's office, home and other premises should not have come as a surprise to anyone, least of all Kejriwal. Primarily because the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) of the Delhi government had been interrogating Kumar for the past few months in relation to the 2002 CNG fitness scam case. The senior bureaucrat was questioned as recently as December 9 after the ACB reopened the alleged Rs 100-crore scam in June this year. He was also interrogated in September and October in relation to the case, which was registered by the anti-graft unit in 2012. It pertains to the period when Kumar was the transport commissioner.

The background and developments in the case must have been known to Kejriwal - this goes beyond doubt. The Delhi chief minister should have been happy as an anti-corruption crusader that action was being taken against an alleged corrupt senior official, whether he was in his office or elsewhere. Whether or not Kumar had been Kejriwal's principal secretary, his premises deserved to be raided and would surely have been the CBI's target. In spite of this, the Delhi chief minister reacted, in fact overreacted, as if the raids were a big and surprising development for him. In a series of tweets, Kejriwal betrayed nervousness and immaturity.

Firstly, Kejriwal is factually wrong that his office was raided. It was his principal secretary's office which was raided.

Secondly, even though the Delhi chief minister was playing to the gallery, it is highly unethical on his part to not only level a personal allegation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but use the words "coward" and "psychopath" for him.

Kejriwal perhaps forgets that he is no more an activist of India Against Corruption (IAC) who can level the wildest of allegations, and use the harshest of words against senior politicians and businessmen without any proof, and get away with them. He is now adorning a responsible constitutional post and should not allow personal proclivities to get the better of him.

He has already paid a price for making wild allegations without any proof and later failing to substantiate his charges. During his IAC days, he had raised allegations of corruption against his predecessor Sheila Dikshit, the then chairman of CWG 2010 Suresh Kalmadi, but spared them of any action. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he had released a list of 27 alleged "beimaan" (dishonest) politicians such as Kapil Sibal, A Raja, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, P Chidambaram, Jagan M Reddy, Kamal Nath, Sharad Pawar, Nitin Gadkari, Sushilkumar Shinde, Veerappa Moily, Pawan Bansal, Naveen Jindal, Shriprakash Jaiwal, B Yeddyurappa, Anurag Thakur, Tarun Gogoi, Anu Tandon, Salman Khurshid, Avtar Singh Bhadana, GK Vassan, HD Kumaraswamy, MK Alagiri, Praful Patel and Ananth Kumar. However, he has not produced a single document against them till date.

While others ignored Kejriwal's allegations, Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari filed a defamation suit against the Delhi chief minister, who after failing to prove his allegations was arrested and sent to jail in May 2014. He finally reached a compromise with the Union minister in May 2015.

Kejriwal, during his IAC days, had also levelled serious corruption allegations even against Pranab Mukherjee, who was the then Union finance minister and had been nominated by the Congress for the President's post.

Kejriwal unfortunately has not learned his lessons, despite facing bitter backlashes to his wild allegations. This morning, as the raids were being conducted, he forgot that this was not an election period when personal allegations could be hurled back and forth in vain. His words do not behove the stature of a chief minister. Far from winning the hearts of any or helping in fetching votes, this tendency will land Kejriwal in deep trouble, and prove him to be an ultimate fraud.