Why has Arvind Kejriwal decided to resign as Delhi chief minister?

Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to resign as the Delhi chief minister and take the post back only after a fresh mandate is aimed at blunting the Bharatiya Janata Party’s line of attack that he and the Aam Aadmi Party are corrupt, political observers told Scroll.

On Sunday, less than 48 hours since being released on bail in the Delhi liquor policy case, Kejriwal sprung a surprise by announcing that he will resign from the chief minister’s post in two days. “I will not sit on the chief minister’s chair till the people pronounce their verdict,” he told party workers in the national capital. He also demanded that the Delhi Assembly elections be held in November, three months before the expected date of February 2025.

Attack on its reputation

Since 2022, Kejriwal, his former deputy Manish Sisodia, party MP Sanjay Singh and the AAP itself have been accused of corruption and money laundering in the liquor policy case. The Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation have alleged that the Kejriwal government modified Delhi’s now-scrapped excise policy to facilitate the cartelisation of liquor trade in the capital in exchange for bribes.

With Kejriwal’s release on Friday, all AAP leaders who had been jailed in the case are now out on bail. But for a party that came to power on the back of an anti-corruption campaign, the allegations threatened to undermine its reputation.

On Sunday, the BJP dismissed Kejriwal’s decision to resign as a “PR stunt”, and said that the chief minister’s image was that of a corrupt leader. AAP, meanwhile, said that Kejriwal had decided to undertake an “agnipariksha” – a trial by fire – of his honesty.

The line taken by the rival parties could largely drive the narrative in the lead up to the Delhi elections, said Abhay Dubey, professor at Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. “Kejriwal has turned the elections to a referendum for himself,” he told Scroll. “Whether the corruption allegations have stuck or not, at least during the campaign every time BJP says Kejriwal is corrupt, he can turn around and say let the people decide.”

The decision to call for early elections could also give AAP a headstart in the campaigning, experts said.

Kejriwal’s ‘comfort zone’

This is not the first time that Kejriwal is giving up the chief minister’s chair as political strategy. In 2013, when he first came to power in Delhi with outside support from the Congress, Kejriwal had resigned just 49 days after government formation citing his failure to introduce a Jan Lokpal Bill – a proposal to set up an independent anti-corruption body. After a year of President’s rule, AAP came back to power in 2015, winning a stunning 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly.

Journalist Ashutosh, who was a member of AAP when Kejriwal resigned in 2013, told Scroll that the chief minister had resorted to a “desperate measure” to go back to a tested method of relinquishing power in the face of criticism for not being able to tackle corruption.

“The scenarios are very different, as back then he had the image of a crusader fighting systemic corruption and now he is himself facing charges,” Ashutosh said. “The decision to resign has come too late, he should have quit when he was jailed. But it seems he wants to salvage his image that has been hit due to corruption allegations.”

This very much seems to be the AAP’s strategy from what the party’s chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar told Scroll. “The court has given Kejriwal ji bail in a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act which is itself a rare thing,” she said. “But he will go to the people and seek their blessings before taking back the chief minister's chair.”

The BJP, however, claimed that Kejriwal had lost his credibility. “The people in Delhi would not be fooled by this drama. If he had to resign, why did he not do so when he was in jail?” party spokesperson Nalin Kohli told Scroll. “Kejriwal’s game is up, he is corrupt, and he will not gain any sympathy by pulling off this last-minute stunt.”

Kohli also said that Kejriwal had resigned only because his bail conditions do not allow him to visit the Delhi secretariat and sign official files. “He is trying to portray himself as a martyr, but he actually wants to remain the shadow chief minister while someone else holds the office,” he said.

The BJP has consistently targeted Kejriwal over corruption, but whether that would translate into electoral success remains doubtful. Even immediately after his arrest in March, Scroll had found that large sections of Delhi residents who have benefited from his government’s welfare schemes, continue to give that primacy over corruption allegations. Now that Kejriwal is out of jail, that factor coupled with public sympathy holds him in good stead, said experts.

“Kejriwal remains a popular leader and he will now go among the people saying that he had been victimised,” Dubey said. “His political career shows that such narratives are his comfort zone.”

Headstart in campaign

If the resignation was aimed at deflecting corruption allegations against himself, Kejriwal’s other move of demanding early polls was meant to give the party an advantage by getting into election mode earlier than other parties, observers told Scroll.

Kejriwal aims to carry forward the momentum he has gained since walking out of jail in a bid to overcome anti-incumbency of 10 years, said Ashutosh. Former Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia has already set the ball rolling by holding rallies in Delhi since he was released last month. AAP spokesperson Kakkar said that Kejriwal was also likely to hold rallies in the coming weeks. On September 1, the party also launched a campaign under which MLAs are going door-to-door in their constituencies.

It seems unlikely, however, that the Delhi elections would actually be held before schedule. AAP has not said anything about dissolving the Assembly and, even if it does so, it would need clearance from the lieutenant governor. The Election Commission too would have to be ready to hold the polls in an already busy schedule, with polling in Jharkhand and Maharashtra scheduled later this year.

“Even if elections are not held earlier, AAP has managed to catch the BJP and Congress by surprise,” Dubey said. “At this point, AAP seems to be the only party which has a clear roadmap for the elections.”