Fact Check: Viral tweet of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on ED summons is fake

Hyderabad: A screenshot of an old tweet purportedly made by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on 24th November 2012, calling out political leaders for not appearing before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), is being widely shared on social media.

The viral tweet reads, “As a patriot Indian, my head hangs in shame when our corrupt leaders do not appear before ED and CBI even after multiple summonses by the investigating agencies, when they should have resigned from their posts immediately as soon as the allegations were made. (sic)”

The screenshot is being shared against the backdrop of Arvind Kejriwal skipping his second summons on December 21, 2023, in the liquor policy case. The agency has now asked the Delhi chief minister to appear before it on January 3. Kejriwal was summoned by the agency on Thursday, but had left for a 10-day pre-scheduled vipassana (meditation) retreat a day earlier.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju and Prominent BJP spokespersons Gaurav Bhatia and Kapil Mishra have shared the screenshot trolling Kejriwal for doing the exact opposite of what he allegedly criticized other politicians for back in 2012.

Speaking to PTI Virendraa Sachdeva, Delhi President BJP also mentioned the 2012 fake tweet by Kejriwal.

The PTI tweet reads, “(Delhi CM) Arvind Kejriwal is behaving like a criminal. A criminal always tries to avoid investigation. On November 24, 2012, he wrote on social media that politicians should resign once they get a summon from ED or CBI. However, to avoid the summon, he has gone for ‘Vipassana’” says Delhi BJP president @Virend_Sachdeva on a fresh ED summon to CM Arvind Kejriwal in excise policy case.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the tweet is fake.

We started our investigation by performing an advanced search on X. We searched for the tweets Kejriwal had tweeted from November 23 to 25 2012 as the viral screenshot is purportedly tweeted on 24th November but could not find a tweet with the contents of the viral one. We also searched for the same tweet on Wayback Machine but could not find any traces of the viral tweet on Wayback Machine.

However, according to the X guidelines, in 2012, Twitter only allowed a maximum of 140 characters in a post. This supposed post by Kejriwal has a character count of 257.

Moving forward, we found a tweet by Team Lead AAP Delhi Social Media and IT Cell, Amanpreet Singh Uppal calling the viral screenshot fake replying to BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia.

Through the above investigation, it is evident that the viral tweet from Arvind Kejriwal is fabricated.