Arvind Kejriwal’s Arrest: Corruption Charges and Political Fallout

Less than a month before India’s elections, Arvind Kejriwal was taken into custody by the country’s financial crime bureau on suspicion of graft.

TFD – Discover the fallout of Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest on corruption charges, sparking opposition protests and political controversy.

A few weeks before the country’s general elections, dozens of opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members were arrested in New Delhi, and scattered demonstrations against the party’s chief leader’s graft arrest broke out throughout India on Friday.

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, the nation’s capital area, was detained by India’s financial crime agency on Thursday in relation to graft charges involving the city’s alcohol policy.

Less than a month before India’s elections on April 19, Kejriwal’s arrest is a blow to the AAP and the bigger opposition alliance, of which he is a central figure.

His party’s ten-year history had all of its major officials imprisoned in relation to the liquor case.

AAP members, including some ministers in the Delhi city government, were stopped by police and taken away in buses as they shouted slogans and sought to march towards the city court where Kejriwal is expected to be produced, TV visuals showed.

AAP leader and finance minister of Delhi, Atishi, who goes by one name, claimed that Kejriwal was arrested to prevent him from running for office in the general elections.

In a statement, she claimed that “this is a way to steal elections.”

In Punjab, the party’s other state in the north, supporters of the AAP staged sit-ins, sang slogans, and carried signs that said “I am also Kejriwal” as part of their protests.

“They can imprison Kejriwal, but they can’t imprison his ideas,” an AAP backer stated on the India Today TV network.

Reluctance in the face of pressure

Protests by AAP members were also held in the western state of Gujarat, the eastern state of Odisha, and the summer capital of the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar.

Nishikanta Mohapatra, the convener of the AAP in Odisha, told reporters that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “wants to distract people’s attention from their corrupt practices.”

“BJP is aware that they may be defeated by a sincere leader like Arvind Kejriwal. This is the reason behind his arrest, Mohapatra stated.

Kejriwal’s attorneys had filed a petition with the Supreme Court to overturn his arrest, but they decided to fight it out in local court on Friday.

The Delhi government abandoned its control over the sale of alcohol in 2022, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is looking into claims that this regulation provided private sellers unfair benefits.

After that, the policy was changed, and the AAP government declared that the investigation had turned up no proof of misconduct.

The 27-member “INDIA” group, of which the AAP is a part, has rejected graft probes against several opposition politicians as the result of a politically driven smear campaign by the BJP, which controls the federal government and the Enforcement Directorate.

The BJP and the federal government assert that law enforcement organizations are carrying out their mandates and refute any political meddling.

Leaders of the opposition have denounced Kejriwal’s apprehension and charged Modi with attempting to subdue and undermine the opposition prior to the polls.

The main opposition Congress party charged on Thursday that Modi had frozen its finances in an income tax issue, so harming the party ahead of the 2018 general election. The BJP refuted the allegations.

“Is Arvind Kejriwal above the law in this country? That is the question. Can he engage in corruption without coming under investigation by detectives? Anurag Thakur, the federal minister of information and broadcasting, posted on X. “The nation is not above the truth.”