Within minutes of Manish Sisodia’s bail plea being rejected by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accepted the resignations of two ministers, Sisodia and Satyendar Jain, and forwarded them to the Lieutenant Governor for approval. There are reports that two AAP MLAs Saurav Bhardwaj and Atishi may be made ministers to reduce the workload on other ministers.
For the past nine months, Manish Sisodia was handling 18 portfolios as Deputy Chief Minister with Saytender Jain in Tihar Jail, including Finance, Planning, Public Works, Labour, Excise, Education, Technical and Higher Education, Vigilance, Tourism, Home, Health included. , urban development, irrigation and flood control, power, water and industry. Jain was arrested in May last year in a money laundering case, while Sisodia is now in CBI custody in the Delhi Liquor Excise scam.
In the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha asked Sisodia’s lawyer to approach either the trial court or the Delhi High Court for bail.
The bench told Sisodia’s counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, “It is a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act.” Can’t you plead the same before the Delhi High Court, which is a forum available to you to seek similar relief? Go to the High Court, which is bound by our decisions… You can take up all these arguments before the competent court. Otherwise what will happen is that we will become the first forum to entertain bail applications. Having an incident in Delhi does not mean that you will go to the Supreme Court.. You have every remedy to approach the competent court and the Delhi High Court. We should not interfere in that process.”
Meanwhile, the CBI has indicated that it intends to seek extension of Sisodia’s remand by five days. Soon after the apex court rejected Sisodia’s bail plea, the deputy chief minister’s three-page letter in Hindi was released to the media.
Sisodia wrote in his resignation letter, “He tried hard to force me to leave you (Kejriwal). He even threatened and coerced me. When I did not yield, they arrested me. But I am not the first person in the world who went to jail while fighting for the truth. ..All these allegations leveled against me are fake and nothing more than a conspiracy hatched by cowards who are afraid of Arvind Kejriwal’s politics of truth. I am not their target, you are.
Praising the Chief Minister, Sisodia wrote, ‘Arvind Kejriwal has become a ray of hope for the people struggling with economic crisis, poverty, unemployment, price rise and corruption. Your words are not seen as ‘jumla’… My prayers are with lakhs of government school children and their parents. The biggest thing I have is the blessings of thousands of teachers who have revolutionized the education sector in Delhi. He ended the letter with the famous revolutionary couplet, “Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai, dekhna hai jor kitna baaju-e-qatil mein hai.”
The question arises whether both Sisodia and Jain had already submitted their resignations to Kejriwal, as both were accepted by the Chief Minister soon after the apex court’s order. Surprisingly, despite being in jail for the last nine months, Kejriwal did not drop Jain from his cabinet. At the same time, Sisodia’s resignation was accepted within 48 hours of his arrest. Will Kejriwal now make it an issue of morality and go among the public?
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad was about to finish his press conference on Tuesday when he got information about the acceptance of the resignations of both the ministers. He returned and remarked that it was a victory for his party workers in Delhi that one minister was in jail and the other was in CBI custody.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh sought to play the victim card and said Sisodia was punished for reforming Delhi’s education system. Both Sisodia and Jain may not be ministers now, AAP leaders said, but the party stands firmly by them.
On one hand, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Telangana Chief Minister K.K. Chandrasekhar Rao and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray have publicly supported AAP, terming Sisodia’s arrest as part of ‘political vendetta’, but Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate, on the other hand, questioned when Congress leader Pawan Khera was arrested in Delhi. Arrested at airport then why Kejriwal and his associates were silent.
Whatever the CBI or the courts say about Manish Sisodia, Kejriwal and other opposition parties will now step up their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani. They will allege that the opposition is being silenced and Modi is trying to save his friends. But the main question is why did Sisodia and Jain resign?
Till now the Aam Aadmi Party has been saying that there is no need for the ministers to resign, even if they are in custody. Satyendar Jain has been in jail for nine months, but neither his resignation was sought nor did he resign. In the case of Sisodia, the AAP leadership waited for the hearing in the Supreme Court and when the Supreme Court rejected the bail, the resignation of both the ministers was announced. Obviously, the detained ministers had no option but to resign.
A new problem has arisen for Kejriwal. The sword of CBI investigation is hanging on Transport Minister Kailash Gehlot in the DTC bus purchase case. On Tuesday, CBI officials visited the Nand Nagri DTC bus depot, which was approved by the Lieutenant Governor in August last year, in connection with the probe.
Secondly, the fallout of the Delhi Liquor Excise Scam is in Punjab, where Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s government had implemented a new Liquor Excise Policy. Opposition leaders in Punjab have pointed out that Punjab’s excise policy is similar to Delhi’s, and appears to have been prepared by Manish Sisodia and his team. The online license renewal form posted on the website of the Punjab Excise Department has been suddenly removed.
Liquor traders and opposition leaders were opposing the new excise policy. Both the Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP have demanded a CBI inquiry into the Punjab Excise Policy matter. BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa had drawn the attention of the CBI and ED in September last year alleging the scam. He had alleged that Punjab’s excise minister went to Delhi and meetings used to be held at Sisodia’s residence to draft the excise policy.
Sirsa alleged that the policy has been made in such a way that the bulk business has been given to only two parties. In his letter to the CBI, Sirsa sought registration of a case against 14 people, including Raghav Chadha, Manish Sisodia, Vijay Nair and AAP MLA from SAS Nagar Kulwant Singh. Sirsa alleged that the companies which have been blacklisted are going to get liquor license in Punjab.
If AAP ministers and leaders in Punjab face CBI action, as happened in Delhi, it may be difficult for Kejriwal to give a credible answer. The sudden withdrawal of the online license renewal form from the website of the Punjab Excise Department has already raised doubts. The opposition in Punjab is bound to make it an issue.
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