The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) portrayed the interim bail granted by the Supreme Court to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as a severe setback to the BJP-led Central government’s subversion of Central agencies to target political rivals.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in a Facebook post, stated that the Supreme Court’s decision was a setback to the BJP, which calculated that it could hang on to power by jailing rivals without trial and on unproven charges. He said Mr. Kejriwal’s release would bolster the national campaign against the BJP’s authoritarian agenda.
He further alleged that the BJP had incarcerated Mr. Kejriwal on dubious corruption and money laundering charges to remove him from the Lok Sabha election campaign scene.
Mr. Vijayan said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, plagued by the fear of defeat, had dodged politics and livelihood issues and flagged communally polarising dog-whistle issues to demonise minorities and play to the paranoid insecurities of the Hindu majoritarian nationalist fringe at the hustings.
CPI(M) State Secretary M.V. Govindan said that the Supreme Court verdict had placed an interim check on the BJP’s misuse of power to jail rivals and silence critics. He said Mr. Modi had lowered the stature of his high office by using law enforcement agencies to target critics, jail rivals, suborn the media, and nobble opponents into defecting to the BJP.
Mr. Modi had lowered himself by supplanting civil political discourse with hate speech and scaremongering at the hustings, he said.
Mr. Govindan said crony capitalism was the regime’s hallmark. “The court has temporarily hobbled the march of fascism. It has upheld the spirit of democracy,” he said.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the SC verdict freeing Mr. Kejriwal for campaigning was a slap in the face of the BJP and also condemned the politics of vendetta and witch-hunt pursued by the Modi government.
He said Mr. Kejriwal’s release from jail would catalyse the INDIA Bloc campaign against the BJP’s fascist regime. KPCC president K. Sudhakaran said the SC decision was a severe blow for the BJP government and its lickspittles in the Enforcement Directorate.
