New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday claimed that the Modi government was planning to arrest its convenor and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal without any “evidence” as part of its attempt to finish the opposition before the Lok Sabha elections.
Party leader Jasmine Shah told reporters that they got to know “through sources” that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is going to arrest Kejriwal in the Delhi liquor scam case.
There was, however, no official statement from ED on the issue. Although Kejriwal did not adhere to the summons of the investigating agency for yesterday.
Claiming a lack of evidence in the two-year investigation by ED against CM Arvind Kejriwal, Shah said that the BJP plans to arrest Kejriwal and other India alliance leaders to weaken the opposition.
“Investigation has been ongoing in this case for two years, and over 500 witnesses have been called. Yet, officials haven’t collected a single piece of evidence against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, nor have they recovered a single rupee,” Shah said.
“Now, they want to arrest Arvind Kejriwal just before the Lok Sabha elections. Not only this, several senior leaders of the India alliance are under investigation by the ED, and they aim to arrest them too so that Modi does not have to face opposition in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections,” he added.
He further highlighted that AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal is ready to cooperate with every investigation within the bounds of the law. “The summons received from the ED so far are deemed “illegal”, and that is why we haven’t responded to them”, Shah said.
Referring to speculations about the arrest of AAP Minister Arvind Kejriwal, he said, “We received information from our sources last night that the ED will conduct a raid and arrest Mr Arvind Kejriwal.”
Slamming the BJP for misusing ED, he said “When Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was about to be arrested, the BJP started spreading rumours that Mr Sisodia would be arrested. Despite being dismissed by the ED, he was eventually arrested.” “The same scenario was witnessed in the case of AAP leader Sanjay Singh’s arrest,” he added.
“Over the last 24 hours, every BJP minister has been stating that Mr Arvind Kejriwal will be arrested, making it clear that if an arrest warrant is issued against Mr Kejriwal, it would be passed through BJP headquarters, and subsequently, the ED will conduct further investigations,” Shah said.
“We all have seen the large gathering of police officials around Mr Kejriwal’s house this morning,” he added.
He further said, “We will monitor the situation. We have not received any official statement from the ED. We will respond if the ED takes any action related to this matter.”
