From leading the ‘India Against Corruption’ movement to serving as Delhi Chief Minister for three consecutive terms, Arvind Kejriwal, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday, has had a checkered career as a bureaucrat-turned-activist and politician.
Kejriwal’s arrest comes as his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) plunges into electoral politics in alliance with its opposition partner Congress in the Indian bloc for the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat, Major expansion.
The arrest of the 55-year-old AAP national convenor may have serious implications for the party’s electoral success as he was at the center of its plans and strategy for the Lok Sabha elections.
In his absence, the party is staring at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political limbo.
His trusted aides – Sanjay Singh and Manish Sisodia – are in jail in connection with the excise case, while another trusted aide Satyendar Jain is in jail in a separate money laundering case.
An IIT alumnus, Kejriwal first led the AAP to form the government in Delhi in 2013 with outside support from the Congress. He faced former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the New Delhi constituency and defeated her by a margin of 22,000 votes in his poll debut.
AAP’s claim of seeking a corruption-free government and alternative politics is getting a major crack as Kejriwal goes to jail in connection with a liquor scam case.
Defending Sisodia, Singh and Satyendar Jain, Kejriwal called corruption “treason” and claimed that AAP was following the path shown by Bhagat Singh.
Indeed, Kejriwal’s arrest in a corruption case is a major departure from his earlier persona as an AAP leader who went on a 14-day fast in 2013 to pressure the then Sheila Dikshit government to intervene over “inflated” water and electricity bills.
