Protests over Modi rival’s arrest rage for 2nd day
NEW DELHI: Hundreds of protesters in New Delhi took to the streets for a second day on Saturday, demanding the immediate release of one of the top rivals of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the South Asian country gears up for a national election next month.
Arvind Kejriwal, the Indian capital’s top elected official and one of the country’s most consequential politicians in the past decade, was arrested on Thursday night by the Enforcement Directorate, which accused his Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party (AAP) and ministers of accepting 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago.
AAP denied the accusations, saying on Friday that Kejriwal would remain Delhi’s chief minister as it took the matter to court.
Kejriwal was taken into custody for seven days following a court order on Friday.
His wife Sunita on Saturday has a message she said was from her husband. Posted on the AAP’s X account, the message quoted Kerijwal as saying he wasn’t surprised by the arrest, for he has “struggled a lot” and warned against “several forces within and outside India that are weakening the country.”
Chanting “Kejriwal is Modi’s doom” and “Dictatorship won’t be tolerated,” protesters on Saturday accused Modi of governing the country under a state of emergency — a claim the opposition has long professed — and using federal law enforcement agencies — like the Enforcement Directorate — to stifle opposition parties before the election.
Bhagwant Mann, APP leader and chief minister of neighboring Punjab state, joined the protest alongside some Cabinet ministers.
“[Kejriwal’s arrest] is a murder of democracy,” Balbir Singh, Punjab’s health minister, told the Associated Press (AP). “For opposition leaders, jail is the rule and bail is the exception.”
He also accused Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to “have turned the rule of law upside down.”
Some demonstrators tried to move the protest to the main street in central Delhi. But police, some in riot gear, blocked them and detained at least three dozen protesters.
On Friday, hundreds of AAP supporters and some senior party leaders clashed with the police, who whisked a number of them away in buses.
In the lead-up to the lengthy general election, which starts on April 19, India’s opposition parties have accused the government of misusing its power to harass and weaken its political opponents, pointing to a spree of raids, arrests and corruption investigations against key opposition figures.
Meanwhile, some probes against erstwhile opposition leaders who later defected to the BJP have been dropped.
The ruling party denies targeting the opposition and says law enforcement agencies act independently.
Kejriwal’s AAP is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called “INDIA,” the BJP’s main challenger in the upcoming election.
His arrest is another setback for the bloc, and came after the country’s main opposition party, India National Congress, accused the government on Thursday of freezing its bank accounts in a tax dispute to cripple it. This has 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 undermine them.
In 2023, the agency arrested Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, and AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh as part of the same case. Both remain in jail.