Blackmailers conspired to tarnish my image: Kejriwal

IANS/New DelhiDelhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said yesterday that a conspiracy was being hatched against him ever since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power.“Ever since our party came to power, a conspiracy is on against me. The blackmailers and corrupt people have come together to tarnish my image,” he said at an event to re-launch the Delhi government’s anti-corruption helpline 1031 to curb bribery in government offices.The chief minister said anyone can “get fame within 24 hours by abusing” him. He did not name anyone in his speech.He said the AAP government was dedicated to making Delhi corruption-free.“We will use technology on a large-scale to make Delhi among the top five corruption-free cities in the world in five years,” he said.Meanwhile, AAP volunteers IN Gurgaon protested against the abrupt transfer of senior bureaucrat Ashok Khemka by the Haryana’s Bharatiya Janata Party government and burnt an effigy of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.The volunteers, who gathered at Rao Mahavir Singh Chowk, also shouted slogans against the state government and Khattar.The AAP alleged that the BJP, when it was not in power in Haryana and at the national level, criticised the then Congress government for transferring Khemka repeatedly.“We demand cancellation of Khemka’s transfer order and want to see him again in the transport department. Haryana has once again done injustice to the honest officer,” a protester said.In a late April 1 night reshuffle, the Haryana government shifted the senior Indian Administrative Service Khemka to a low-key assignment as director general  of the archaeology and museums department.Khemka was appointed transport commissioner and secretary of the transport department in November last year after Khattar assumed office as chief minister of the first BJP government in the state.At that time also, Khemka, who had blown the lid off the controversial multi-million rupee land deals of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, was tipped to get an important assignment. However, he was posted in the transport department. It was Khemka’s 46th transfer in 24 years.