The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday said it would defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Haryana Assembly polls next month and in the Delhi Assembly elections slated for February, reported The Indian Express.
This came after the Supreme Court granted bail to party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday. He was released from Tihar Jail in the capital at around 6:25 pm after about five months in prison.
The Supreme Court did not agree with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s position that Kejriwal be asked to approach the trial court for bail, reported Live Law.
This was because the Delhi High Court had heard the case when approached by the chief minister and did not relegate him to the trial court.
All Aam Aadmi Party leaders who were arrested in the excise policy case have now received bail. Kejriwal will join the party’s Haryana polls campaign.
“People want to bring us to power and we will win the polls,” said Sushil Gupta, the Aam Aadmi Party’s state unit chief, to PTI.
Haryana will head for the polls on October 5. The counting of votes will take place on October 8, alongside that of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections.
The Aam Aadmi Party fielded candidates for all 90 Assembly seats in the state after talks of an alliance with the Congress failed.
On Friday, the party demanded the resignation of Union home minister Amit Shah, citing the Supreme Court’s remark likening the Central Bureau of Investigation to a “caged parrot”, reported The Indian Express.
“The court has clearly said that the premier agency of the country worked with a sense of vengeance,” said Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj.
“The BJP must apologise to the country as it has been exposed before the Supreme Court today for openly misusing the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation,” said party leader and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.
The Hindutva party, on the other hand, pointed out that India’s top court had not found Kejriwal’s arrest to be illegal and said that he had no right to remain in office.
The Congress, which is an opponent of the Aam Aadmi Party in the capital, accused it of misleading people.
“Kejriwal’s conditional bail by the Supreme Court, after many rejections, in the liquor scam case, was a legal procedure,” said Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee head Devender Yadav to The New Indian Express.
“He cannot go to office and function as the chief minister. It’s ironic that the AAP has been celebrating the bails of Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Satyender Jain as if they have been absolved of all the corruption charges against them. They are forgetting the fact that they continue to face trial.”
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