Will only find pencils and geometry boxes at Manish Sisodia's home: Raghav Chadha

New Delhi, Aug 19: As the CBI today raided Manish Sisodia, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and its Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha said the CBI would find nothing but ''pencils and geometry boxes'' at the Delhi's education minister.

The BJP was planning to jail the Delhi deputy chief minister, he alleged, adding over 100 fake cases had been registered against AAP leaders but they came clean in courts every time.

Earlier, Kejriwal said, ''Many obstacles will be created in our mission. This is not the first raid on Sisodia; there were raids in the past too. There have been raids on many of our ministers and me too. But nothing came out of them and nothing will come out this time as well.''

As a CBI team reached Sisodia's residence in the morning, he took to Twitter to welcome the CBI, saying conspiracies will not break him nor deter his resolve to continue to work for providing good education.

Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena last month recommended a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the implementation of Delhi's Excise Policy 2021-22. He suspended 11 excise officials in the matter. Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia had also demanded a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the policy.

The searches by the CBI covered seven states and union territories.

At a press conference on Friday, Kejriwal hailed Sisodia as the ''world's best education minister'' after his name was featured on the front page of the New York Times and claimed the ''obstacles'' like the CBI raids will not deter them from their mission to make India the ''number one country''.

''The CBI has been asked from above to harass us,'' he alleged.

AAP national spokesperson Sanjay Singh said the alleged irregularities in the formulation of excise policy are just ''an excuse'' to put the CBI after Sisodia. ''The real issue here is the growing popularity of Arvind Kejriwal and his Delhi model of governance in education and healthcare,'' he said.

Days after Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain, who gave the Delhi model of mohalla clinic to the world, was jailed by the Enforcement Directorate, the prime minister has put the CBI after Sisodia, the AAP charged.

''Preparations are underway to put Sisodia behind bars as the prime minister is not able to sleep at night due to the growing popularity of Kejriwal and his Delhi model of governance in education and healthcare sectors,'' Singh charged.