Late on Wednesday night, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj took to Twitter, raising concerns about a potential raid by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The ministers claimed that they had received information indicating that the ED might conduct the raid on Thursday morning, with the possibility of Kejriwal being arrested.
“News coming in that ED is going to raid @ArvindKejriwal’s residence tmrw morning. Arrest likely,” Atishi tweeted at 11.50 pm on Wednesday. Two minutes later, Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj posted the same information in Hindi, stating, “Got to know ED will be reaching Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s house tomorrow morning and is likely to arrest him.”
The late-night alerts came in the aftermath of Kejriwal’s third consecutive failure to respond to ED summons regarding his alleged involvement in a liquor scam. Kejriwal has consistently deemed the summons as illegal, drawing sharp reactions from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP criticized Kejriwal for evading the ED summons and questioned his motives, tweeting, “What is Arvind Kejriwal scared of? Has he abandoned Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, who continue to be in jail in the Liquor Excise scam? Kejriwal, instead of skipping ED summons, should take lessons in corruption for I.N.D.I Alliance leaders, who can also enrich themselves with his experience…”
Kejriwal had previously skipped the first summons on November 2, citing administrative duties and election campaigning. The second summons was on December 21, and Kejriwal left for vipassana a day before. In a written response on December 3, Kejriwal stated his busyness with Rajya Sabha elections and readiness to answer the questionnaire if provided. He claimed that the ED did not respond to his previous letters seeking more context on the reasons behind the summons.
In his latest reply to the ED summons, Kejriwal mentioned, “Being the Chief Minister of Delhi, I am also quite occupied in planning and preparations for several programmes and functions for the Republic Day i.e., 26th January 2024.”
Amidst these developments, the second phase of the “Main Bhi Kejriwal” campaign is set to commence on Thursday. The party, having reached out to 2.4 million households in the national capital, sought public feedback on whether Kejriwal should resign if arrested or continue to govern from jail. The AAP claims that the public has overwhelmingly expressed the opinion that Kejriwal should not resign.