BJP wants to arrest CM to stop him from campaigning for LS polls: AAP

The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday accused the BJP-led Centre of hatching a conspiracy to arrest Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to stop him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls.

Kejriwal on Wednesday skipped the third summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi excise policy case and sent a written reply calling the notice illegal.

AAP leader and Delhi cabinet minister Atishi called the summons a “political” vendetta and said the ED has not responded to Kejriwal’s repeated written requests seeking clarity on why he was being called for questioning.

“Arvind Kejriwal has repeatedly asked the ED to tell in what capacity is he being summoned. He has also asked the ED to send all the concerned inquiries in the form of a questionnaire which will be answered duly,” Atishi said, adding that the AAP is not afraid of “such summons”.

“The ED and the CBI have become a political tool for the Bharatiya Janata Party to attack the opposition leaders,” she said.

Corroborating her views, Delhi minister and AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj questioned the timing of the ED summons.

“The ED has still not answered in what capacity is he (Kejriwal) being summoned — as a witness or an accused,” Bharadwaj said while addressing a press conference here.

“The entire excise policy case is political and an attempt to stop Kejriwal from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP-led Centre has hatched a conspiracy to get him arrested,” he added.

Bharadwaj said former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who has been in jail for nearly a year,

will be proven innocent

sooner or later.

The minister also claimed that the threat of arrests and inquiries by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation only looms over the opposition leaders while those from the BJP don’t face any action in cases against them.

Gopal Rai, AAP’s Delhi State Convenor, questioned the ED’s silence on why Kejriwal, neither an accused nor a witness, is summoned repeatedly.

Rai criticised BJP leaders responding to the summons and stated, “Instead of ED, BJP is answering Arvind Kejriwal’s questions, is ED BJP or is BJP ED?” The AAP emphasized that if the summons were genuinely from the ED, they would cooperate but won’t respond to politically motivated BJP summons. He highlighted the BJP’s restlessness, suggesting that the notices may not be from the ED but the BJP itself.

Rai remarked, “It seems like BJP leaders have no other work but to defend the ED. Seeing the restlessness of BJP leaders, everyone is questioning whether the notices repeatedly coming are not from the ED but from the BJP itself.” He accused the BJP of targeting opposition leaders through ED-CBI investigations, raising questions on the timing and transparency of these actions.

Furthermore, Rai alleged that once individuals join the BJP, actions against them halt, citing Chhagan Bhujbal as an example. He stated, “The fear of the BJP is evident from the beginning of the new year. That’s why questions are being raised repeatedly on the timing of the notices sent by ED.”

Adding his voice to the allegations, AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP and National General Secretary Organisation, Sandeep Pathak, questioned the motive behind sending the summons just before the Lok Sabha elections. He attributed it to the BJP’s fear of Kejriwal’s increasing popularity across the country.

Kejriwal was asked to appear before the ED on Wednesday for questioning in connection with an

excise policy-linked money laundering case.

This was the third ED notice to Kejriwal, also the AAP’s convener, after he refused

to appear before the federal agency on two earlier summonses for November 2 and December 21.