New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will not leave the INDIA alliance, party founder and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Friday, amid fresh tension between his partymen and Opposition ally Congress over the recent arrest of a Congress MLA in Punjab.
Kejriwal, whose party also rules Punjab, sought to allay concerns Friday when he said the AAP was fully committed to the INDIA bloc. “We will not leave it under any circumstance. We shall fulfill the alliance dharma,” AAP’s national convener told reporters in Delhi.
He said he had heard about the Punjab Police arresting a person on a drugs charge, but refused to comment on it further.
The state police arrested Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Thursday in connection with a 2015 drug-trafficking case, triggering accusations of political vendetta by the ruling AAP.
A Congress delegation, led by Punjab unit chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, met Governor Banwarilal Purohit in the evening, and complained the case was “fake”.
After his arrest, Khaira hit out at Punjab Chief Minister and AAP leader Bhagwant Mann, saying he was “thirsty for my blood”. “It is not politics of ‘badlav’ (change) it is a ‘badle dee rajniti’ (politics of revenge),” the MLA said.
Khaira, who has been critical of the AAP government on several occasions, also said he was summoned in the case despite the Supreme Court staying trial court proceedings in 2017.
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