Not backing down: Police detaining AAP supporters in New Delhi. — AFP
Supporters of an anti-corruption crusader and one of India’s most consequential politicians of the past decade held protests against his arrest, which opposition parties say is part of a crackdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government before national elections.
Arvind Kejriwal, who is New Delhi’s top elected official, was arrested on Thursday night by the federal Enforcement Directorate, which is controlled by Modi’s government.
The agency accused his party and ministers of accepting one billion rupees (RM56.6mil) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago.
Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, or Common People’s Party, denied the accusations and said they were fabricated.
The party said Kejriwal will continue to be Delhi’s chief minister while it fights the accusations in court.
Adding to the party’s troubles, as part of the same case, the agency also arrested Kejriwal’s deputy Manish Sisodia and AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh in 2023.
In the lead-up to the general election, which starts on April 19, opposition parties accuse the government of misusing its power to harass and weaken its political opponents to gain an unfair advantage in the polls.
They point to a spree of raids, arrests and corruption probes against key opposition figures.
Meanwhile, some probes against erstwhile opposition leaders who later defected to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have been dropped.
“It looks like harassment because only opposition leaders are being singled out,” said political commentator Neerja Chowdhury, adding that there’s been no probe against anyone in the BJP.
“It’s not a level playing field.”
The BJP denies using law enforcement agencies to target the opposition and says the agencies act independently.
Yesterday, hundreds of AAP supporters and some senior party leaders clashed with the police, who whisked a number of them away in buses.
“This is dictatorship. All this is done to win the national polls,” said AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj, referring to the BJP.
Kejriwal’s AAP is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA, the main challenger to Modi’s BJP in the elections to be held in April-June.
His arrest is another setback for the bloc, and came after the Congress party accused the government on Thursday of crippling the party by freezing its bank accounts in a tax dispute.
But it has also led to a rare show of strength by the opposition figures who slammed the move as undemocratic, and accused Modi’s party of misusing the agency to weaken them.
“A scared dictator wants to create a dead democracy,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said about the arrest in a post on X.
“India is under an undeclared Emergency. Our democracy stands critically endangered today,” said Raghav Chadha, a lawmaker from the AAP.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said Kejriwal’s party was playing the “victim card”, and that the leader should resign from his chief minister post. — AP
