Protests erupt in India after arrest of Arvind Kejriwal
Opposition members detained in New Delhi
Saturday, 23 March 2024
NEW DELHI, Mar 22 (Reuters): Dozens of members of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were detained in New Delhi and sporadic protests erupted elsewhere across India on Friday against the arrest of AAP's top leader for graft, weeks before general elections.
India's financial crime agency arrested Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of the national capital territory of Delhi on Thursday in connection with graft allegations relating to the city's liquor policy.
Kejriwal's arrest, less than a month before India begins voting on Apr 19, is a setback for AAP and the larger opposition alliance of which he is a key leader.
All the main leaders of his decade-old party are in jail in connection with the liquor case. AAP members, including some ministers in the Delhi city government, were stopped by police and taken away in buses as they shouted slogans and sought to march towards the city court where Kejriwal is expected to be produced, TV visuals showed.
Kejriwal has been arrested to stop him from campaigning in the general elections, said AAP leader and Delhi finance minister Atishi, who uses only one name.
"This is a way to steal elections," she said in a statement.
AAP supporters also protested in the northern state of Punjab, the other state ruled by the party, staging sit-ins, shouting slogans and holding placards that read "I am also Kejriwal".
"They can jail Kejriwal but they can't jail his thoughts," one AAP supporter told the India Today TV channel.
AAP activists also staged protests in the eastern state of Odisha, the western state of Gujarat, and in Srinagar, the summer capital of the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir. "BJP wants to distract people's attention from their corrupt practices," AAP's Odisha convener Nishikanta Mohapatra told reporters, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
"BJP knows that an honest leader like Arvind Kejriwal is capable of defeating them. This is why they arrested him," Mohapatra said.