Pune (Maharashtra), March 22 :
Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar on Friday strongly flayed the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying the Aam Aadmi Party would gain in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, and expressed apprehensions that more such actions may follow.
Speaking to the media here, Sharad Pawar reiterated how the Central investigation agencies were being used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against opposition political parties and their leaders, and criticised the nabbing of CM Kejriwal late Thursday evening.
“The abuse of the ED and CBI and other agencies is going on by freezing (bank) accounts to stop the campaign of a big political party (Congress) in the country. The ex-CM of Jharkhand was also arrested and jailed… All this is wrong and I condemn it,” said Pawar.
While declaring his full support to CM Kejriwal, he said that "by putting a good man in jail, democracy is being strangled, and it is hundred per cent clear that the action is being taken in view of the elections, and such things are unprecedented in the country".
"Same action was taken in Jharkhand, now Delhi and tomorrow it will happen across the country, even raising doubts over how fair the LS elections will be," he said.
Predicting that the AAP will get a political windfall after CM Kejriwal’s arrest, Sharad Pawar said that earlier the party got more than 90-95 per cent seats, “this time, they will get hundred per cent seats” as 80-89 per cent of the Delhi electorate admires the AAP leader.
He referred to CM Kejriwal’s earlier harassment after which, he had made a clean sweep of the Delhi Assembly elections on two occasions (2015 and 2020), and predicted that even this time the AAP will get huge sympathy votes in the ensuing polls.
Sharad Pawar’s comments came the morning after CM Kejriwal’s arrest in an alleged excise policy scam, sending shockwaves in the opposition circles across India and evoking strong criticism of the BJP.
Other Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders, including Congress’ Nana Patole, Atul Londhe, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut, NCP (SP)’s Dr. Jitendra Awhad, Clyde Crasto and many more have slammed the government on CM Kejriwal’s arrest terming it as systematic targeting of the opposition by gross abuse of the Central probe agencies.
The AAP Maharashtra unit held protests and demonstrations in different parts of the state denouncing CM Kejriwal's arrest by the ED.