New Delhi: Less than a month before the Lok Sabha polls, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal became the first sitting chief minister to be arrested in independent India last Thursday. It set off a political firestorm and protests on the streets of New Delhi, where the party was born out of the anti-corruption movement nearly 12 years ago.
Kejriwal’s arrest, which capped years of a bruising feud between the AAP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), occured in a case registered by the Union government’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with alleged irregularities in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-2022, which was later withdrawn.
A 12-member team of ED arrested Kejriwal from his official residence in Delhi’s Civil Lines area hours after the Delhi High Court declined to grant him interim protection from any coercive action. Kejriwal had been served nine summonses since last October by the ED to join the investigation in the case, which he skipped, calling them “illegal”.
The arrest of Kejriwal, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, triggered sharp reactions from the Opposition parties, many of which, including the AAP, are contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls under the INDIA banner. On Friday, a delegation of INDIA bloc leaders submitted a petition to the Election Commission of India (ECI) opposing the arrest.
“There emerges a clear, deliberate and sinister pattern, where the ruling regime is abusing its power, and completely destroying any semblance of a level playing field for other political parties contesting the Lok Sabha elections. Never before has such high-handedness ever been witnessed,” the INDIA bloc petition to the ECI said. The parties argued that the ED’s move is in direct violation of provisions of the Representation of People Act and the Indian Penal Code.
More than the INDIA bloc, however, the arrest poses a major challenge for the AAP, which attained the status of a national party in 2023. It faces not only the task of fighting the Lok Sabha polls but also the challenge of keeping the party stable, given that Kejriwal is its fourth top leader to find himself behind bars. And that is why Kejriwal is ThePrint Newsmaker of the Week.
Former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and former Home Minister Satyendar Jain are also incarcerated. While Sisodia and Singh are in jail in connection with the same excise policy case, Jain was arrested in a separate money laundering case.
President’s rule in Delhi?
These arrests have created a vacuum in the top rung of the AAP, which has formed three successive governments in Delhi since 2013. Additionally, the party rose to power in Punjab in 2022, the same year it made modest gains in BJP’s pocket borough Gujarat.
On its part, the AAP has maintained that if needed, Kejriwal will govern Delhi from jail but will remain the CM. Even on Saturday, the AAP’s official handle on X posted, “Arvind Kejriwal was the Chief Minister. Arvind Kejriwal is the Chief Minister. Arvind Kejriwal will remain Chief Minister. As commanded by the people of Delhi.”
It remains an open question whether the BJP will attempt to get President’s rule imposed in Delhi citing a failure of constitutional machinery if Kejriwal remains on the hot seat despite being in custody. Article 239AB of the Constitution of India may come in handy for the central ruling party in that case.
It states that the President of India, upon being satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the administration of Delhi cannot be carried out, may, by order, suspend the operation of any provision of article 239AA, which is the constitutional provision that deals with the governance structure of Delhi.
Brains behind IAC movement
For now, having to fight the taint of corruption is particularly challenging for the AAP, which, as the political expression of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, shook the foundations of the UPA II government led by Congress’ Manmohan Singh. It is against this backdrop that India saw the rise of Modi and a resurgent BJP under his wings.
While Maharashtra-based social activist Anna Hazare was the face of the IAC, Kejriwal was the brains behind the disruptive movement that had Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan as its nerve centres. It was in Jantar Mantar where AAP was formally launched as a political party on 26 November 2012.
Kejriwal’s speeches, which captured the popular imagination then, were primarily against corruption in politics, the need to jail tainted politicians, and setting up bodies such as a Jan Lokpal to pursue such cases. Now, Kejriwal finds himself accused of financial embezzlement.
The ED, which will have Kejriwal’s custody till 28 March as ordered by a Delhi court on Friday, has alleged that he was “kingpin and key conspirator” of the alleged irregularities in the excise policy. The agency further accused the AAP national convenor of using the “proceeds of crime in the Goa election campaign of the AAP.”
The AAP, which has rejected all these charges, claims that the ED has not managed to recover “even one rupee proceeds of crime” despite its investigation into the case for over two years now.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)