AAP announces ‘gherao’ of PM residence to protest Kejriwal’s arrest; BJP hits back
AAP leader Gopal Rai on Friday announced that the party leaders will protest against chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest at Shaheedi Park near the income tax office in New Delhi tomorrow. Rai said that all AAP MLAs, councillors, functionaries and partners of the opposition INDIA bloc will reach the park at 10 am.
“We will take an oath to save the country from becoming a dictatorship,” the senior AAP leader told a press briefing.
Gopal Rai also said that “all people of Delhi” will reach the prime minister’s residence for ‘gherao’.
“Today, protest was held across the county against the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal. Tomorrow is Martyrs’ Day, and all our ministers, MLAs, MLCs and workers will gather at Shaheedi Park. We also appeal to the INDIA bloc leaders to come there at 10 am tomorrow and take a pledge to save the country from dictatorship,” Rai later told PTI.
“On March 24, we will burn effigies to mark our protest. On March 25, we have suspended all our Holi events. On March 26, the entire Delhi will march towards the PM house,” he added.
BJP MP Manoj Tiwari scoffed at Rai’s statement wondering “”If no one has come today, then who is going to come after 2-4 days?”
“The people of Delhi are not even discussing them.”
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday evening arrested AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering probe linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy case. A trial court remanded Kejriwal to six-day ED custody after he was produced around 2 pm amid tight security on and around the court premises.
The central agency which probes economic crimes told the court that Kejriwal was a “key conspirator” in the alleged excise policy scam and sought his 10-day custody.
Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is representing Kejriwal, said this is the first time in the history of India that a sitting chief minister has been arrested.
“Please don’t look at remand as a routine exercise… it requires application of significant judicial mind… larger issues of democracy involved,” Singhvi said.
Delhi cabinet ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj were detained here on Friday as AAP leaders staged a protest against the BJP. The two ministers and others were taken away in police buses after they refused to disperse from Central Delhi’s ITO intersection, which is near the headquarters of the AAP and the BJP and where prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure were in force. AAP supporters raised slogans against the BJP-led central government and demanded the release of their detained leaders.