As the Delhi chief minister is sent to six-day ED custody in the case, questions are being raised on the politics behind the arrest and its pre-poll timing. He is the first sitting chief minister to be arrested by any agency in the country<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
By Sanjay Raman Sinha<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a surprise late evening swoop on March 21, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated search operations at the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. After a two-hour search and preliminary questioning, the agency apprehended Kejriwal and kept him overnight at the office cell and produced him at the PMLA court the next day on March 22 where he was remanded to ED\u2019s custody for six days till March 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The arrest was over Delhi excise policy-linked alleged scam in which money laundering charges have been slapped on Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders. The ED operation was dovetailed to the Delhi High Court order in which interim relief from arrest was denied to Kejriwal. The ED team had arrived armed with the tenth summon, after the earlier nine were not complied with by Kejriwal. With Kejriwal\u2019s arrest, the four main leaders of the AAP are now behind bars. The late evening arrest saw a melee of AAP leaders, who had gathered outside Kejriwal\u2019s official residence, protesting. The agitating party workers were bundled in police vans and taken to police stations. Section 144 was clamped in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The political reaction was strong and rose in intensity as time went by. Rahul Gandhi was the first to lash out online. He posted on X: \u201cA scared dictator wants to create a dead democracy\u201d. Later on, the West Bengal chief minister also slammed the Modi government over the arrest. Mamata Banerjee wrote on X: \u201cIt\u2019s outrageous that while elected opposition chief ministers are being deliberately targeted and arrested while individuals accused under CBI\/ED investigations are allowed to continue their malpractices with impunity, especially after aligning with the BJP. This is a blatant assault on democracy.\u201d Other political heavyweights also joined the chorus and condemned the arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n