New Delhi: Delhi’s auto and taxi drivers have printed banners with their own money professing support for jailed former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who they believe has been wronged.
Posters saying “We miss you Manish Ji” can be found pasted behind many taxis and autos, a gesture drivers feel is their way of showing solidarity with the politician, who “has given them so much”.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, jailed since February, is being probed by both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with alleged corruption in the formulation of the capital’s now-withdrawn liquor policy and associated money-laundering.
A volunteer in the Auto-Taxi Association spoke to ThePrint on condition of anonymity, and said the banners were initially distributed by the AAP government after Sisodia’s arrest, but they decided to widen the campaign.
He said: “Fifty such posters were printed by the government and put up outside their office in and around ITO. Soon, a few auto-drivers started putting it on their vehicles.”
Auto-driver Haider Ali, 35, from Dwarka, said: “I was at a signal when I saw the poster behind an auto. I clicked a picture on my phone and got it printed for my auto as well. I spent Rs 300 because I believe that whatever is happening with both Sisodia Ji and Jain Ji is wrong.”
Former AAP health minister Satyendar Jain is also in jail since last May for alleged corruption and money-laundering.
Ali said auto drivers participated in sit-ins during the previous Congress government of chief minister Sheila Dikshit to get their demands met. “The AAP government on the other hand gave us Rs 5,000 during both lockdowns in Delhi. We never asked for it. They also reduced the permit fees and helped us get loans easily.”
An ardent AAP supporter, he added that Satyender Jain had also helped his cancer-ridden sister get proper treatment. Jain, he believes, was being held without reason.
Sonu Gupta (40), an auto driver from Sangam Vihar shared the same sentiments.
“I was in Kashmere Gate when I saw them (AAP workers) put up these banners and I decided to put them up too, in support of Manish ji. No one gave it to me. I had also put up a banner of I love Kejriwal too earlier. He has done so much for us since they came to power.”
After AAP was recently granted national status by the Election Commission, party convener Arvind Kejriwal said that “anti-national forces had worked together to put former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and former Delhi minister Satyendar Jain in jail”.
“If Sisodia and Jain would have been here, it would have increased our happiness. They are fighting for the country,” he said.
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