The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) staged a number of demonstrations in various parts of the city on a day when Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for questioning, in connection with the Excise policy case. At least 1,350 AAP leaders and workers were detained from across the city, the Delhi Police said.
Heavy security arrangements were made near the CBI headquarters with multiple layers of barricading and a high presence of police and paramilitary personnel. The force was also deployed in other parts of the city such as the AAP headquarters at DDU Marg, Kashmere Gate ISBT, ITO intersection and Siraspur chowk in view of protests by the AAP workers.
At least 30 AAP leaders were detained from Archbishop Makarios Road near the CBI headquarters, where they staged a sit-in to wait for Mr. Kejriwal to come out. The leaders, including Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who had come to accompany Mr. Kejriwal till the CBI HQ, were stopped by the police about 1.5 kilometres before the Central probe agency’s office.
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A senior officer said that the police detained the leaders around 3 p.m. as soon as Mr. Mann left the protest site, and took them to the Najafgarh Police Station.
The detainees included Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh; Raghav Chadha; Delhi Cabinet Ministers Kailash Gahlot, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi; Punjab Cabinet Ministers such as Harjot Singh Bains; and AAP national general secretary Sandeep Pathank, among others.
The leaders, who were mostly sitting peacefully on the roadside surrounded by security officers circling them, also raised slogans against the BJP, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi such as “Modi Adani bhai bhai, desh bech kar khayi malai” and “Loktantra me tanashahi, nahi chalegi-nahi chalegi”.
“Out of frustration”
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Singh said that Mr. Kejriwal was called for questioning “out of frustration” after he spoke on the Modi-Adani issue in the Delhi Assembly. “Nothing will come out of this investigation because there has been no scam. They want to crush Kejriwal because we have become a national party now. They are only torturing people to get them to give statements,” he said.
Mr. Singh said that the party would discuss its strategy and decide the future course of action, after the CM comes out of the CBI office.
After getting detained, Mr. Chadha, in a tweet, said that the leaders were only protesting peacefully but the BJP “could not digest this and ordered the police to put us in jail”. “The BJP is suffering from Kejriwal-phobia. Their only target is to crush the AAP and its honest and educated politics so that there is nobody left to challenge them in the country,” he said.
At a press conference, General Administration Minister Gopal Rai alleged, “Since last night, AAP leaders were getting threat calls to not protest. Despite that, our workers came out on the streets and several leaders were detained by the police. Overall, 32 MLAs and 70 councillors have been detained.”
Mr. Rai said that about 20 Punjab MLAs were also detained on the city border.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor, however, said that the AAP’s call of “chakka-jam (standstill)“ was rejected by the people. “Most of their own workers stayed away from the AAP announced demonstrations in the city,” he said.
“Overall, 32 MLAs and 70 councillors have been detained”Gopal Rai Minister of General Administration
