New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by a team of India’s Enforcement Department (ED) in a liquor policy scam on Thursday.
Kejriwal, who has emerged as a formidable challenge for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years, has been arrested just weeks ahead of the Indian national election.
According to the Indian media, Kejriwal has become the first sitting chief minister to be arrested in the history of the South Asian country. A 12-member ED team arrested Kejriwal at his residence in North Delhi’s Civil Lines on Thursday evening.
The ED team reached his residence and questioned him after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from coercive action in the excise policy case earlier in the day.
After Kejriwal’s arrest, the main leaders of the decade-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are in jail. Two of Kejriwal’s deputies were arrested in the same case last year and the party called it “dirty politics”.
ED, the financial crime agency of India, is investigating allegations that a liquor policy implemented by the Delhi government in 2022 gave undue advantages to private retailers. The policy ended the government’s control over sale of liquor in the capital, but it was withdrawn later.
AAP lawmaker from Delhi Atishi said on social media that the party was seeking to quash the latest arrest. She said, “We have asked for an urgent hearing by the Supreme Court tonight itself.”
