Buoyed by the Supreme Court’s decision to grant Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal interim bail in the Enforcement Directorate’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act case related to the excise policy matter, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday termed the verdict historic. Reacting to the development, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said “being granted bail is not acquittal”. Expressing hope that he would be released from prison, where he has spent 90 days in custody since his arrest by ED in March this year, the AAP questioned Kejriwal’s arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation last month which it termed a “conspiracy” to keep him incarcerated adding that it was a matter of time before he would “return to the service of the people”. “The BJP knew that the SC would put its stamp of approval on the Rouse Avenue court verdict (granting bail to Kejriwal), that is why it used another one of its tools, the CBI, to arrest him on the heels of the judgement in the case in the SC,” senior AAP leader and minister Atishi alleged. “Why was he arrested by the CBI? Because they knew that if he gets bail in the ED case, he would come out and start working at ten times the speed. I want to tell the BJP today that each and every court of the country has exposed your conspiracy one by one…each court has said that there is no proof against Arvind Kejriwal ji and each court is granting bail to him,” she also said. Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of being arrogant and asking it to stop “conspiring against other political parties and against democracy” as it went after Opposition leaders, Atishi said, “The truth can be troubled but not defeated. Today, this bail granted to Arvind Kejriwal proves in front of the whole nation that Arvind Kejriwal was, is, and will continue to stand with the truth.” Sandeep Pathak, AAP national general secretary (organisation), termed the excise policy case “a circus” created by the BJP, accusing the party’s top leadership of “fraudulently” arresting opposition leaders. “Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and the BJP have contributed just one thing to the nation…a dictatorial system where any leader whom they cannot confront and defeat politically is fraudulently and wrongly arrested…We have to move on from this kind of politics…we have to take the country forward…I request the PM and Amit Shah ji to step out of this dirty politics and do positive politics,” he said. Terming the SC’s decision historic, AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj expressed hope that Kejriwal would step out of prison soon. “I want to congratulate everyone who has been struggling against the atrocities being inflicted by the Central government for several years and especially those who are bearing the brunt of PMLA…” he said. “…as far as the CBI’s case is concerned…the onus is on the agency to prove its case…all the others accused in the alleged scam are out on bail…it appears to be a matter of time before Kejriwal ji gets bail in the CBI case too and returns to the service of the people…” Bharadwaj added. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sachdeva said in a video message, “Arvind Kejriwal is an accused in the excise policy scam. He has siphoned off Rs. 100 crore, Rs. 45 crore of the money trail has been discovered by CBI and is being investigated. Until the investigation is complete, there is no scope to discuss his innocence… Arvind Kejriwal is not standing with the truth. He was, is, and will remain a scammer and he has committed a scam in the excise policy. Even Lalu Yadav got interim bail, he was convicted later, and had to go to jail. Arvind Kejriwal has looted the entire of Delhi’. “The truth will come out and Arvind Kejriwal will be punished for the crime he has committed against the poor of the city,” he added.
