Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday alleged that there is pressure being exerted on him to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "Won't join BJP, not going to be bent", Kejriwal said.
"They can hatch whatevery conspiracy against him, I am also firm. I am not going to bend. They are asking me to join BJP, then they are going to leave me alone. But I said that I will never go to BJP, I will never join BJP, not at all," the AAP supremo said after laying the foundation stone of a school in Rohini, Delhi.
The Delhi CM has linked the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to a broader strategy aimed at hindering his election campaign, especially with the upcoming parliamentary elections on the horizon.
The AAP leader has questioned the timing of the ED's third summons, which instructed him to present himself before the agency on January 3, 2024, related to the alleged Delhi liquor scam case. Kejriwal has termed these summons 'illegal' and has suggested that they are part of an attempt to arrest him under false pretenses and prevent him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls.
During the event, Kejriwal accused the BJP-led Central government of allocating only 4 per cent of the national budget to schools and hospitals, contrasting it with the Delhi government's commitment to spending 40 per cent of its annual budget on these crucial sectors. He also made reference to his incarcerated AAP colleagues, Manish Sisodia and Satyendra Jain, in his speech.
"Today all agencies are after us. Manish Sisodia's fault is that he was building good schools. Satyendr Jain's fault is that he was getting good hospitals and mohalla clinics built. Had Manish Sisodia not been working for the betterment of school infrastructure, he would not have been arrested. They created all sorts of conspiracies, but couldn't deter us," Arvind Kerjiwal said.
Kejriwal, in his address, urged the audience to continue expressing their love and blessings, emphasizing that he desires nothing more than that.
Recently, Kejriwal and AAP Minister Atishi found themselves at the center of a political controversy involving allegations of MLA 'poaching.' The Delhi Police Crime Branch took action by serving notices to both politicians, seeking their responses to claims that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempted to lure away seven legislators from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
On Sunday, the police arrived at Minister Atishi's residence to deliver the notice. However, she was not present, leading her Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to accept the notice on her behalf. Atishi has been given a deadline until Monday, February 5th, to provide her response to the serious allegations.
The situation escalated the previous day when a five-hour standoff culminated in the Delhi Police finally handing over a similar notice to Chief Minister Kejriwal. The notice required him to respond within three days as part of the investigation into the poaching claims. The police specifically requested that Kejriwal disclose the identities of the AAP MLAs who were purportedly approached by the BJP with offers to switch allegiance.
Kejriwal expressed his sympathy for the police officers involved in serving the notice. He criticised the situation as "drama" and suggested that the police were being diverted from their primary duty of preventing crime in Delhi, which he implied was contributing to a rise in criminal activity.
The AAP has vehemently denied the poaching allegations, labeling them as absurd and baseless. Kejriwal himself had previously claimed that the BJP offered Rs 25 crore each to seven AAP MLAs as part of a scheme to destabilize his government. Despite these contentious claims, all seven AAP MLAs reportedly refused to defect.