Will you be happy if Arvind Kejriwal resigns as the chief minister of Delhi?

 Possibly it will be a mixed reaction for me. Personally, I distaste him. I have a great dislike for him. So there is part of me that would possibly not be so unhappy if he had to resign. But that doesn’t give me any reason to be happy as well. See as a nation Kejriwal or AAP fail to be any factor if we count the number of MP AAP have or had, hardly 1–2. No doubt AAP is ruling two states, but that is state-specific. And to that extent, the people of Delhi and Punjab may have a direct impact or direct emotion connected. Otherwise, AAP hardly plays any role in the national perspective, AAP simply doesn’t have the strength to make any difference.

Not that AAP has not tried to play any role in the national politics. AAP has fought most or quite a few state elections in full strength to expand its base or to help the BJP ( I doubt so) in the process mostly cutting Congress votes. I understand that if AAP is to expand its base, it has to eat up Congress's vote base. Most regional parties have eaten up Congress vote base only. But AAP has focused more so in those states where Congress has a sizable base.

Kejriwal and AAP came to the limelight by defeating the Congress in Delhi and thereafter repeatedly defeating/demolishing the start-studded BJP in the Delhi assembly election. Nowhere Modi’s BJP has been thrashed like this. So Kejriwal has duly earned his reputation and national attention. Kejriwal has brought a kind of new dimension to Indian politics by offering free electricity and water. His model of Mohalla Clinic and School education have also been the talk of the town. In all, he started a new breed of politics and people were looking at him with hope. He promised clean politics and he took Indian politics by storm.

New Delhi, Delhi, India. 22nd Mar, 2024. Supporters of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) shout slogans and hold placards during a protest against it's party leader's arrest and also Delhi's Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi, India on March 22, 2024. (Credit Image: © Kabir Jhangiani/ZUMA Press Wire)

However, you can not do clean politics for long particularly if you want to aggressively fight in every state election. Definitely, you would need money. As anticipated he got booked in the Liquor scam. First time a in power has been arrested and he has refused to resign. So there is a controversy about whether he can continue being CM from custody. The ball is now more so in the court of the Modi government being the custodian of the constitutional power to terminate the Kejriwal government and impose the President’s Rule.

Coming back to the question again - If Arvind Kejriwal resigns as the chief minister of Delhi, will you be happy? I have already said that I do not have any sympathy for Kejriwal and I strongly dislike him. However, we need to see the whole affair from a different angle. Things have turned up so dirty that people look at every arrest with suspicion. This was not the case before. Earlier if someone was arrested people believed that the accused must have done something wrong. But now that credibility of the law 7 enforcement has gone. And this is true more so for the ED and the CBI accompanied by IT. The IT department freezing Congress account and serving 1700 crores tax notice is a glaring example.

There are accusations and comments that he was issued nine summons. But my question is why? Is it normal for the ED to wait till up to nine summons and then arrest the accused if he doesn’t show up? Is the same norm followed in every case? If not why the deviation? When P Chidambaram was arrested he was not given so many summons. He was straight away arrested. If the ED had solid evidence why didn’t it obtain the arrest warrant much before? The court needs to ask the ED about the standard procedure and why it wasn't followed. It's not that Kejriwal was absconding and not traceable. If the ED had solid ground to hold him as an accomplice or the kingpin in the liquor scam why did they wait for two years after starting the investigation and issue 9 summons? Just sending nine summons can not be a strong ground for arresting an in-power CM. And if the ED had strong ground why they waited so long?

So definitely there comes the question of whether his arrest is an outcome of normal law & order procedure or something else. Does his arrest have any connection with the upcoming general election? After disclosure of the electoral bond details the ED’s roles come under public questioning.

Another co-accused in the Delhi Liquor case, Sarath Chandra Reddy was taken in custody by the ED on 10th November 2022, and on 15th November 2022, Aurobindo Pharma of which Mr. Reddy is a director, bought EB worth 5 crores, and BJP encashed the same on 21st November 2022. The Hyderabad-based firm Aurobindo Pharma purchased electoral bonds worth 52 crores between April 3, 2021, and November 8, 2023. Out of which Rs 34.5 crore was donated to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rs 15 crore to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and Rs 2.5 crore to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

As reported fourteen of the top 30 Indian companies donated nearly ₹4,000 crore to political parties as the ED and CBI knocked on their doors. 41 corporate groups had faced a total of 56 ED, CBI, and IT raids and donated Rs.2,592 crore to the BJP, of which Rs.1,853 crore was given after the raids, Congress claimed.

So we can not see Kejriwal’s arrest in isolation since the ED itself standing on highly questionable ground. I am not being able to be happy with Kejriwal’s arrest despite my strong dislike for him. His tendering resignation will definitely not be a very good sign that I would be happy. There are people who are roaming free and holding high positions of DY CM despite being accused of a much bigger alleged scam of Rs,70000 crores. Possibly because his party is in NDA. The Delhi Liquor Scam involving an alleged sum of Rs.100 crores is a peanut. The Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren was arrested on an 8.5-acre land case.

In another answer, I have pointed out that the Liquor Bill was possibly the only bill that the Delhi Lt. Governor passed in one go without raising any query or holding up. Which is exceptional. The Delhi Lt. Governor generally raises objections and holds up every bill passed by the Delhi Cabinet. Conveniently he didn’t find any flaw in the Liquor bill to return the bill for reconsideration or to send it to the President for vetting. People Know Kejriwal government had to move the Supreme Court for clearance of the bills on quite a few occasions. The same happened with the TN and Kerala governments. But you see the Delhi Liquor Bill could sneak through the Lt. Governor’s table so smoothly. And this is one bill BJP finds to involve a scam of Rs.100 crores.

If I didn’t have so many questions, then possibly I would have been happy if Arvind Kejriwal resigned as the chief minister of Delhi. But that is not the case and I have so many questions. Anyway, these are all anticipation and assumptions only. There is absolutely no indication as of now that Kejriwal may think of resigning.