NEW DELHI: Assam chief minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma
said that Delhi CM
Arvind Kejriwal
invited his own arrest by not adhering to the
Enforcement Directorate
‘s summonses in a
money laundering
case linked to the now-scrapped
Delhi liquor policy
.
Himanta said ignoring nine summonses might have been a political move to garner sympathy and disregarding it indicated a deliberate invitation for arrest.
He said had Kejriwal presented himself before the ED after initial summonses, he would have been arrested.
“If the ED serves someone nine summonses and that person doesn’t show up, it is evident that he is inviting his arrest. The ED didn’t arrest Kejriwal, he invited the agency to arrest him,” the
Assam chief minister
said while speaking to reporters at the state BJP headquarters after a poll-preparedness meeting on Saturday.
The ED arrested Arvind Kejriwal on Friday after the Delhi high court refused to grant him protection from coercive action by the central anti-money laundering agency.
Meanwhile, the
Aam Aadmi Party
is preparing to convert the protest against Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest into a mega “
nationwide movement
“.
The INDIA bloc, including the Aam Aadmi Party, staged a protest at Shaheedi Park in ITO against the arrest of CM Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday.
There was some tension when the crowd, estimated by police at around 500, began marching towards Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg where both the AAP and BJP headquarters are located. The cops detained around 18 people during the course of events, releasing them later in the day.
AAP has declared it will not celebrate Holi on March 25 and the party workers will ‘gherao’ the Prime Minister’s residence on March 26.