Raghav Chadha, a prominent leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and a suspended member of the Rajya Sabha, vehemently criticized the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in response to the Enforcement Directorate's recent summons issued to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal regarding the alleged excise policy scandal.
In a press briefing held on Wednesday, Raghav Chadha asserted that various entities affiliated with the BJP were allegedly plotting the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal. He elaborated on the political landscape, emphasizing that Delhi's seven Lok Sabha seats were pivotal in the equation. According to Chadha, there were concerns that if the INDIA bloc, a hypothetical political alliance, were to contest the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP might lose all seven Delhi seats. This fear appeared to be driving the ruling party's purported intention to detain the opposition leader, with Arvind Kejriwal being the primary target, as suggested by Chadha.
The alleged strategy of the BJP, as outlined by Raghav Chadha, entailed detaining Arvind Kejriwal with the objective of securing all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. He articulated this plan with the following statement: "BJP's plan is - Arvind Kejriwal ko jail me daalo, 7 seat Delhi ki apni jeb me daalo (Put Arvind Kejriwal behind bars and win 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi)."
Moreover, Chadha posited that the BJP's subsequent targets might include Jharkhand Chief Minister and JMM chief Hemant Soren. He suggested that Hemant Soren's popularity had been on the rise in Jharkhand since assuming office as Chief Minister. As a consequence, Chadha predicted that the BJP, which had won 14 out of 19 seats in Jharkhand during the 2019 general elections, might secure only four seats in the state in 2024. Consequently, he surmised that Hemant Soren could be the next leader to face arrest, according to the suspended Rajya Sabha MP.
In addition to the political landscape in Jharkhand, Raghav Chadha also commented on Bihar, where he alleged that the BJP's target was Tejashwi Yadav, the Deputy Chief Minister and a leader of the RJD. He then expanded on the BJP's alleged strategies in West Bengal, acknowledging the formidable challenge of defeating Mamata Banerjee. Chadha proposed that the only conceivable approach for the BJP was to apprehend Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek, given the perceived difficulty of defeating them at the ballot box.
Chadha asserted that the central tactic of the BJP was to imprison the top leadership and party presidents of the INDIA alliance, thereby leaving the BJP as the sole contender in elections. This strategy, he claimed, was the foundation upon which the BJP's agencies were planning their initial arrests.
Raghav Chadha's comments came in the wake of the Enforcement Directorate's summons issued to Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the Delhi liquor policy scandal, in which AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh had already been apprehended.
AAP contended that the financial watchdog was poised to detain Arvind Kejriwal on November 2 after questioning him in a money laundering case associated with the liquor policy scandal. Furthermore, AAP leaders like Atishi suggested that the potential arrest of Kejriwal was not linked to corruption charges but rather to his vocal opposition to the BJP.
Notably, this summons from the Enforcement Directorate marked the first time that Arvind Kejriwal had been called for questioning in connection with the alleged excise policy scandal, despite having been previously interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on this matter in April.
