Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal surrendered at the Tihar Prisons on Sunday as the interim bail granted to him by the Supreme Court expired.
The apex court had granted interim bail of 21 days to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. The case is being probed by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED). Before heading for the Tihar jail, the Delhi chief minister addressed fellow party leaders and members at the AAP office.
He said he, as a disciple of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who embraced the galaxies for the country’s independence, was going to jail to save the country.
He said that the way Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life for the nation, he was also ready to be hanged for the sake of the nation. He did not know when he would be released or what could be done with him while in prison, but come what may, he won’t bow down.
Mr. Kejriwal claimed that he was going back to jail not because he was involved in corruption but for raising his voice against “dictatorship.”.
Claiming that he was fighting against the alleged dictatorship, he said the country could not tolerate authoritarianism. Mr. Kejriwal dismissed the exit polls, predicting a landslide victory for the ruling BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, as ‘fake’. Picking holes in the outcome of the exit polls, he pointed out that one of them gave 33 seats to the BJP in Rajasthan, where there are only 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The chief minister said there are several theories on why such alleged fake exit polls have been done before the counting. According to one of them, it is to boost the share market, as a lot of money has been invested in it. When it opens tomorrow, they can manage the investments accordingly.
Secondly, he said through the polls, an atmosphere is being created to pressurize officials to do as they want, as they were eventually coming to power once again.
Calling the entire exercise a mind game played in the name of exit polls, he urged his supporters, party leaders, and workers not to fall prey to these machinations and asked the counting agents to be vigilant during the counting until the last vote is counted regardless of their candidate winning or losing.
He thanked the apex court for granting him interim bail of 21 days to campaign for the elections and added that he did not waste even a minute of the said duration.