With his three-week temporary bail for poll campaign ending, AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Mr. Arvind Kejriwal will be back in Tihar Jail on Sunday at 3.00 pm as a court here put off till June 5 its order on his plea seeking interim bail on medical grounds.
A day before his scheduled surrender, Kejriwal on Saturday held a meeting of the AAP’s Political Affairs Committee at his residence before attending an INDIA bloc meeting at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s home.
Prominent AAP leaders including Cabinet minister Atishi, Rajya Sabha MPs Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh, and MLA Durgesh Pathak attended the PAC meeting, with sources saying the chief minister emphasised the need to keep unity among the party leaders in his absence. It was also emphasised that Kejriwal will remain Chief Minister, and his wife Sunita Kejriwal will continue to convey his messages to party leaders, volunteers, and the people of Delhi, the sources said.
Kejriwal was released from the jail on May 10 on interim bail granted by the Supreme Court for campaigning in the Lok Sabha polls. The polls ended on June 1. The chief minister had earlier moved the Supreme Court seeking a seven-day extension of the interim bail granted by it in the money laundering case linked to alleged excise policy scam.
However, the Supreme Court registry on Wednesday refused an urgent listing of his plea in which he had pleaded he needed time to undergo medical tests as he was losing weight and was having high ketone level. He then moved the special CBI-ED court seeking interim bail on medical grounds.
Hearing his plea on Saturday, the special CBI-ED court reserved for June 5 its order on his application. The court observed that the plea was for interim bail on medical grounds and not for the extension of the interim bail granted by the Supreme Court.
The Enforcement Directorate opposed his interim bail plea, arguing he campaigned throughout the elections, but “now when he has to surrender, he suddenly claims to be ill”. The case being probed by the ED relates to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP president Mr. Virendra Sachdeva said the Chief Minister should stop his “illness drama” and go back to the jail if he has any respect for law. It is regrettable to see Kejriwal campaigning after getting bail in a healthy condition and now claiming to be seriously ill and seeking bail on medical grounds, he said.
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