New Delhi, India – The arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by India's financial crimes investigation agency on Thursday night prompted near-unanimous condemnation from the country's fragile opposition, with some leaders warning of a popular “revolution” against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Kejriwal's arrest, weeks before the first round of India's mammoth seven-phase national elections, comes on the heels of similar arrests of opposition leaders and raids on their properties by law enforcement agencies. . India's largest opposition party, the Congress, said Thursday morning that it could not continue its campaign because all of its bank accounts had been frozen in connection with an ongoing tax dispute.
The latest arrest also plunged India's capital into an unprecedented constitutional crisis – the first time Delhi's sitting prime minister has been arrested. Calling it “dirty politics” on Modi's part over a “false case,” a spokesperson for Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) told Al Jazeera that the party leader would not resign and would instead “lead the government from the jail”.
India's Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been investigating allegations of corruption in a liquor policy implemented by the Kejriwal government in 2022. The policy allegedly gave improper advantages to private retailers and has led to the arrest of ministers, officials and an executive from the Indian branch of France. spirits giant Pernod Ricard.
Before the arrest, the agency had summoned Kejriwal, 55, for questioning nine times. The prime minister refused to appear before the authorities. Now, he joins almost all of his party's top leaders – former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and former ministers Satyendar Jain and Sanjay Singh – in prison, deepening challenges for the AAP, which rules two opposition-ruled states. : Delhi and Punjab. .
The AAP has denied allegations of corruption, while the Modi government has rejected allegations of political vendetta.
“Whatever the Prime Minister wants, he can do it. So far, they have arrested two chief ministers, and it is possible that they may arrest more chief ministers,” Saurabh Bharadwaj, Delhi's health minister and a close aide of Kejriwal, said in a statement to Al Jazeera.
Last month, the agency arrested Hemant Soren, hours after he resigned as chief minister of Jharkhand state, accused of corruption. Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, like the AAP and the Congress, is part of the INDIA opposition alliance that hopes to take on Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming elections, in which the prime minister aims to secure a third term.
However, some analysts suggest that the arrests could prove politically risky for Modi and the BJP, potentially galvanizing sympathy for the targeted leaders and uniting an otherwise divided opposition into greater unity against the shared threat of a crackdown on all of them.
'Common man' to 'martyr'?
Devender Singh, a 34-year-old AAP worker, joined hundreds of protesters who gathered near the prime minister's residence in Delhi as the agency questioned Kejriwal on Thursday ahead of his arrest. “This is unbecoming of Indian democracy,” he told Al Jazeera. “[An elected CM] “He is being harassed and tortured in broad daylight, what has gone through Modi's mind?”
“The first time I voted for Kejriwal; Next time I campaigned for him,” Singh said, amid a growing police presence and slogans lamenting the “death of democracy.” And he added: “It is a witch hunt for opposition leaders by the government that fears any alternative.”
Kejriwal founded AAP, Hindi for “common man's party,” in 2011 as part of an anti-corruption crusade. He then scored resounding electoral victories over Modi's poll-strong BJP in 2015 and in 2020, when he won 67 and 62 seats in successive elections to the 70-member assembly.
However, in the 2019 national elections, the BJP swept all seven of Delhi's seats in parliament. The voter bases of the two parties partly overlap, including in elements of Hindu majoritarianism, analysts told Al Jazeera.
By reaching out to Kejriwal, the Modi government not only risks positioning itself as authoritarian and arrogant, said Asim Ali, a political commentator, but could also alienate swing voters between the BJP and the AAP. Now, “they can stay with the AAP out of sympathy, or even vote for the Congress out of spite.”
“The risk for the BJP is to turn Kejriwal into a martyr,” he said.
Amid arrests and raids of opposition leaders, critics and journalists, India has fallen in international democratic indices under Modi's government. The government has said the reports are unreliable and now plans to produce its own index.
“[The arrests] “This demonstrates the desperation of the Indian authorities and a blatant disregard for human rights,” Aakar Patel, chair of Amnesty International's board of directors in India, told Al Jazeera. “What we are witnessing is a government consolidating its power by constantly weaponizing laws and central financial agencies at the expense of the people – and rights – it considers expendable.”
Since Modi came to power in 2014, 95 percent of the cases taken up by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – India's main investigation agency – and the ED have been against opposition politicians. This represents an increase of 60 percentage points for the CBI, and 54 percentage points for the ED, from the days of the previous Congress-led government that ruled from 2004 to 2014.
“It is imperative that all state institutions function properly and with full respect for human rights, including the Enforcement Directorate, the Election Commission and the justice system, to ensure that the people of India can fully and fairly exercise their rights.” civilians and politicians before, during and after the general elections,” Patel added.
'INDIA will give an appropriate response'
Kejriwal's arrest also unleashed a wave of condemnation from opposition political parties, including those that have distanced themselves from the INDIA bloc in recent weeks.
Minutes after the arrest, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: “A scared dictator wants to create a dead democracy.”
The Trinamool Congress, which rules in the eastern state of West Bengal and which in recent days decided to contest the national elections alone, after having been part of the INDIA alliance, also criticized the arrest.
“How can we expect fair elections in India if sitting CMs and prominent opposition leaders are arrested weeks before elections?” asked Trinamool leader Derek O'Brien on X.
In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister MK Stalin described the arrest as a “fascist” move. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the arrest was “absolutely callous and part of a callous plot to silence all opposition voices just before the general elections.” Stalin's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Vijayan's Communist Party of India (Marxist) are both part of the INDIA bloc.
Akhilesh Yadav, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister whose Samajwadi Party is also part of the INDIA bloc, said Kejriwal's arrest would “give rise to a new people's revolution.” He said the arrests of opposition leaders showed that the BJP was “captured by the fear of defeat” in the upcoming elections.
Most opinion polls suggest Modi and the BJP are positioned for a comfortable election victory, with the prime minister setting a target of 400 seats in India's 543-seat lower house for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). ) who leads the party. The NDA won 353 seats in 2019.
Meanwhile, the remaining AAP leaders are trying to pull themselves together. “They can arrest [Kejriwal], but they cannot stop their ideology,” said Delhi Health Minister Bharadwaj. “[He] It is an idea that is germinating in every street and neighborhood.”
The BJP, however, hailed the arrest and described Kejriwal as the “liquor scam kingpin”.
On Thursday night, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra attacked Kejriwal. “[AAP says] Arvind Kejriwal is not a person, he is an idea. I must say that it is a bad idea.”
