By Ananya Sharma 
New Delhi, May 18: The Enforcement Directorate fanned out across Delhi and Goa early on Monday morning, conducting searches at the residence of Aam Aadmi Party leader and Goa co-incharge Deepak Singla, as well as at the homes of AAP volunteers based in the coastal state. The central probe agency described the action as part of an ongoing investigation into an alleged bank loan fraud-linked money laundering case.
By late morning, AAP had gone on the offensive, with former Delhi Chief Minister and current Leader of Opposition Atishi training her guns squarely at the Bharatiya Janata Party, accusing it of using the ED not merely to intimidate party workers, but to gain access to AAP’s internal organisational data ahead of what are expected to be fiercely contested assembly elections in Goa.
The Raids: What Happened On The Ground
The Enforcement Directorate on Monday conducted searches at premises linked to AAP leader Deepak Singla and some others in an alleged bank loan fraud-linked money laundering case, as reported by PTI. The searches were undertaken at locations in Delhi and Goa, according to unidentified officials.
The scope of the action was wider than just Singla’s personal address. Another official told The Indian Express that in Goa, the searches were being conducted at a flat where some of AAP’s organisation team live. That detail mattered to AAP. A raid at a party worker’s shared accommodation, rather than just a leader’s private residence, looked different from a routine enforcement action, and the party moved quickly to say so.
Singla had contested the Delhi Assembly elections from the Vishwas Nagar seat on an AAP ticket in 2020 and 2025. Within AAP’s internal structure, he holds a position of real operational consequence. Apart from his political endeavours, Singla also holds key roles within the party hierarchy, serving as AAP’s in-charge for Goa and as co-incharge of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. His Goa role makes him one of the people most responsible for building AAP’s ground-level presence in a state where the party has been trying for years to break through.
This is not the first time the ED has come knocking at Singla’s door. He was also raided by the ED in 2024 as part of an earlier investigation. That prior action was also tied to a money laundering probe linked to bank fraud. The recurrence, AAP argues, is not coincidence. The ED has not publicly detailed the specific allegations or named the bank or the quantum of the alleged fraud in the current case.
In a separate case on the same day, the central probe agency also conducted searches in a matter in which certain individuals were allegedly duped to the tune of Rs 180 crore through an investment fraud. That parallel action was unrelated to Singla or AAP, but it underlines just how busy Monday was for the Enforcement Directorate.
Atishi Fires Back: “Steal Our Organisational Data”
AAP’s response came fast and it came hard. Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly and AAP MLA Atishi lambasted the BJP of trying to “acquire organisational data” of her party after ED searches were conducted at the residence of AAP leader Deepak Singla in Goa.
In a post on social media, Atishi’s language was pointed. She said: “With Aam Aadmi Party’s popularity growing in Goa, BJP’s loyal foot-soldier, ED has been sent here as well! From early morning today, there is an ED raid at the residence of AAP Goa co-incharge, Deepak Singla, as well as the home of some volunteers in Goa. Not only is this an attempt to scare our volunteers, but also to acquire all our organisational data for the BJP!”
That last accusation is the sharpest part of the allegation. AAP is not just saying the ED is being used to intimidate or frame its leaders. It is saying the raids are being used as a data-gathering exercise, a way to physically access party phones, laptops, and documents in order to understand AAP’s internal electoral machinery in Goa. It is a specific and serious charge, and it goes beyond the standard political vendetta narrative.
According to Atishi, the action was aimed at intimidating AAP workers and accessing the party’s internal organisational information.
Atishi did not stop at Monday’s raids. In a separate video message shared on X, Atishi alleged that the BJP used the ED and IPAC against TMC to win the West Bengal assembly elections. She alleged that the BJP acquires TMC’s organisational data through the raids, inferring that the same politics is being played in Punjab and Goa ahead of the elections. The West Bengal parallel is a deliberate rhetorical move. By drawing a line from Bengal to Goa, Atishi is trying to establish a pattern, not just respond to a single incident.
She also pointed to what she called selective enforcement. She said that the ED raided the residence of AAP leader Sanjeev Arora after he refused to join the BJP, while those who joined the party, including former AAP MP Ashok Mittal, were spared. That comparison, if accurate, is damning in its specifics. The ED and the BJP government have not publicly responded to that particular allegation.
A Pattern That AAP Keeps Flagging
The raids on Singla cannot be read in isolation. They arrive against a backdrop of sustained enforcement pressure on AAP’s leadership and organisational structure that has been running for over two years.
On May 9, Punjab Minister and AAP leader Sanjeev Arora was arrested following a day-long search at his four premises, including his residence, his associated entities, and one office premises belonging to Hampton Sky Realty Limited, which is also under the agency’s scanner in the case. The ED’s action was part of an Enforcement Case Information Report recorded by it on May 5 this year. So within ten days, two prominent AAP leaders across two states have faced significant enforcement action. That is the rhythm AAP is asking people to notice.
The ED’s track record with AAP is extensive. Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the agency in March 2024 in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy case. Several senior AAP leaders have faced either arrest, raids, or summons in the years since. The party’s standard response is that these actions are politically motivated and timed to coincide with electoral cycles, an argument it is now making again with explicit reference to Goa.
The Goa Context: Why This Matters Ahead Of Elections
Goa is not a large state. Its assembly has 40 seats. But it punches well above its weight politically, partly because of its visibility and partly because it is one of the states where multiple parties, including the BJP, Congress, and AAP, have competed seriously in recent election cycles.
AAP has been trying to build a meaningful presence in Goa for several years. The party put up candidates in the 2022 Goa assembly elections and has since been investing in organisational infrastructure, which is precisely what Deepak Singla has been tasked with overseeing as Goa co-incharge. The timing of Monday’s action, at the flat housing AAP’s organisation team in Goa, is what makes Atishi’s data-theft allegation politically potent regardless of the legal merits of the ED’s bank fraud case.
If the next round of Goa assembly elections approaches and AAP believes its ground-level voter data, worker lists, and electoral strategy documents have been accessed through enforcement raids, that is a charge that will colour the entire campaign. The party is clearly preparing to use this narrative as an energising issue for its Goa unit.
What The ED Has Said, And What It Has Not
The Enforcement Directorate, as is standard practice, has kept public communication limited. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the searches and cited the bank loan fraud-linked money laundering case, but provided no further specifics on the quantum of alleged fraud, the names of the bank involved, or the specific accusations against Singla.
This opacity is not unusual for the ED, which routinely declines to comment in detail during the search phase of an investigation. What the agency has not done is address any of Atishi’s specific allegations, including the charge that party volunteers’ homes were searched, that organisational data was a target, or that the timing is connected to Goa’s political calendar.
The BJP has also not issued a formal statement responding to AAP’s accusations. That too is fairly standard. The ruling party typically lets enforcement actions speak for themselves and avoids engaging with opposition characterisations of those actions as politically motivated.
The Larger Question About Enforcement And Opposition Politics
The use of central agencies in disputes between the ruling dispensation and opposition parties is not a new debate in Indian politics. Successive governments, including UPA administrations, have faced similar accusations. Still, the scale and frequency of ED actions involving AAP specifically, a party that was until recently in power in Delhi and continues to govern Punjab, has made the argument about selective targeting harder to dismiss.
The Supreme Court has, on various occasions, raised concerns about the use of agencies in what it has described as cases where arrest appeared to be an instrument of coercion rather than investigation. AAP has used those judicial observations consistently in its public communications.
Whether Deepak Singla faces formal arrest under PMLA, and what material the ED surfaces from Monday’s searches, will determine how this story develops. For now, what is clear is that AAP has decided not to absorb this action quietly. The political response has been immediate, structured, and clearly aimed at a national audience as much as a Goa-specific one.
For now, the ED’s searches have achieved something beyond whatever legal purpose they may serve. They have handed AAP a fresh political grievance at a moment when the party is working to establish itself in a state that could prove significant to its national recovery.
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- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
