The arrest of Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh, after nearly 12 hours of searches and questioning by the Enforcement Directorate at his residence, was accompanied by a flurry of activity on Wednesday.
As part of its probe in the Delhi excise policy case, ED officials reached the Rajya Sabha member’s house at North Avenue around 6.45 a.m. AAP workers soon started gathering in the area.
The officials initially allowed Mr. Singh’s father, Dinesh, to step out and go for a walk in a park nearby, but later asked him to come back.
By 6 p.m., 70-80 AAP workers had assembled and started raising slogans against the BJP. Fifteen minutes later, the officials escorted Mr. Singh out and he too raised slogans along with the workers.
Security forces accompanying the ED took away the AAP leader in a vehicle, but not before a supporter lay down in front of the car to unsuccessfully try and stop it.
Meanwhile, AAP uploaded on X (formerly Twitter) a series of videos, showing scenes leading up to his arrest.
AAP releases videos
In one clip, the Mr. Singh was seen taking his mother’s blessings before leaving with ED officials, telling her to be courageous. Another clip showed him telling party workers, “Marna manzoor hai, darna manzoor nahi (I’m willing to die, but won’t be afraid).”
Follow Mr. Singh’s arrest, Delhi Ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj along with AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar hit out at the central agencies during a press conference at the party headquarters.
“For the past 15 months, about 500 officials are working on this case. Ask them to show corruption of even one rupee,” Ms. Atishi said.
Referring to the searches at the homes of journalists, she said, “Yesterday, homes of well-known journalists were raided and their laptops taken. Today, they [agencies] reached Sanjay Singh’s house and spent eight hours there and did not find anything. This shows the BJP’s haar ki baukhalahat (anxiety ofi failure n the election).”
