In the liquor scam case, the court sent Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to the remand of the Enforcement Directorate for 6 days. Kejriwal will now remain in ED custody till March 28. Many lawyers presented arguments on behalf of Kejriwal, asked the basis of Kejriwal’s arrest, described Kejriwal’s arrest as the result of electoral politics, but on Friday, for the first time, ED told the court that Arvind Kejriwal is the mastermind of the liquor scam. It was Arvind Kejriwal who made the liquor policy which benefits the liquor traders. A profit of about Rs 600 crore was earned from this policy. Out of this, Aam Aadmi Party received Rs 100 crore as kickback. Out of this, forty-five crore rupees were spent in Goa elections. ED has evidence of this.
ED connected all the links of the liquor scam and placed it before the court. Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter K. Quoted Kavita’s statement. In this case K. Kavita has already been arrested and on Friday itself, the Supreme Court rejected Kavita’s bail plea saying that she should appeal in the trial court. ED said in the court that the conspiracy of liquor scam was hatched very carefully and cleverly, the mobile phones which were used for conversation or messaging were destroyed but messages were found from the phones of some accused which showed that It is said that Rs 45 crore of liquor scam was sent through Hawala in Goa elections. The candidates to whom the money was delivered are also ready to give statements. ED told the court that apart from Kejriwal, what was the role of K. Kavita, Vinay Nair, Sameer Mahendru, Dinesh Arora in this case.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi opposed Kejriwal’s remand by linking this case to electoral politics, but after seeing the documents, the court sent Kejriwal to ED custody for 6 days. The arguments presented by Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the court as Kejriwal’s lawyer on Friday did not prove effective. The documents and evidence shown by ED to the court overshadowed Singhvi’s arguments. The revelations made by ED in the court are surprising. Kejriwal is the Chief Minister, but he does not keep any ministry with himself, his signature is not on any file. Therefore, it was very difficult for the ED to collect evidence and connect the links in this case. Now ED has got the custody of Kejriwal but now it will be a big challenge for ED to prove its allegations in the court. And until this is proved, Kejriwal’s party leaders will call the liquor scam a political conspiracy by BJP.
Aam Aadmi Party workers demonstrated vigorously in Punjab. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and all the ministers of his cabinet reached Delhi. Demonstrations in support of Kejriwal were held in Chandigarh, Mohali, Patiala, Ludhiana and Sangrur. Aam Aadmi Party was formed by Kejriwal. Till now it was Kejriwal who led the party and thrice it was Kejriwal who led the party to victory in Delhi elections. That is why Aam Aadmi Party workers and leaders cannot even imagine how the party will run and how the Delhi government will run in the absence of Kejriwal. However, till now publicly the stand of Aam Aadmi Party has been that even if Kejriwal has to go to jail, he will not leave the post of Chief Minister, nor will he resign from the post of party coordinator. He will run both the party and the government from jail itself but this is not practically possible.
A PIL has been filed in the High Court in which an appeal was made to immediately remove Kejriwal from the post after his arrest. Earlier too, Kejriwal had not taken resignations from Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain for a long time after they went to jail, but when the work of ministries started coming to a halt, he had to resign and Saurabh Bhardwaj and Atishi had to be made ministers. Anyway, running the government of Delhi is a difficult task. The Lieutenant Governor is present here. As a representative of the central government, LG has a lot of powers. So, how Kejriwal will be able to run the government from jail, which is difficult to run outside the jail, is a big question. My information is that if Kejriwal does not resign for two days even after going to jail, then the LG will ask him to resign and it is possible that a big legal battle will break out. (Rajat Sharma)
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