New Delhi: Delhi Minister Atishi on Tuesday alleged that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) now plans to arrest her and three other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders after arresting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the liquor policy case.
She claimed that the ED will arrest her, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Durgesh Pathak and Raghav Chadha.
The allegation comes a day after the ED mentioned Bharadwaj and Atishi’s names in court while seeking judicial custody for Kejriwal.
“I have been told that soon there will be ED raids at our residence and then we will be taken into custody. The BJP is now targeting the next line of the leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party,” the Hindustan Times quotes Atishi as saying.
“I have been approached to join the BJP through a personal contact. I have been told that either I can join the BJP and save my political career or get arrested in the next one month. An individual very close to me told me that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made up his mind to put every AAP leader in jail. Starting with Satyendar Jain, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, now they have arrested Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. But now they want to arrest another four top leaders — me, Raghav Chadha, Durgesh Pathak and Saurabh Bharadwaj,” she said.
The Delhi minister added that the BJP expected the AAP to crumble after Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest but they got scared seeing the opposition parties coming together in the Ramlila Maidan on Sunday. “So now they want to target the next line of leadership,” Atishi said.
Giving out a timeline of how things will unfold, the Delhi minister said there will be raids on her and on her relatives. “Then we will be issued summons and then we will be put in jail. But I want to tell the BJP that we are not scared. Put all of us in jail, we will stand with Arvind Kejriwal until our last breath. Put everyone in jail. 10 others will take that place and join Arvind Kejriwal’s fight,” Atishi said.
Atishi’s explosive claims came a day after the ED took the name of Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj in the court and said Arvind Kejriwal told the agency that Vijay Nair — a key exponent of the alleged liquor scam — reported to her and Saurabh. Reacting to this, Atishi said this was not new information and ED was told this before also but ED telling it to the court now laid the ground for possible action against Atishi and Saurabh.
Arvind Kejriwal was arrested on March 21 in connection with the liquor probe and was sent to judicial custody on April 1 till April 15. AAP maintained that Kejriwal will remain the chief minister and run the government from Tihar jail.
After ED on Monday told the court that Kejriwal named Atishi and Saurabh, there were claims on social media that Saurabh Bharadwaj unfollowed Kejriwal on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Delhi minister clarified that nothing like this happened.
