BJP plans to get Kejriwal arrested, target top INDIA bloc leaders: AAP

The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday alleged that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be the first to be arrested as part of the BJPs plan to target top INDIA alliance leaders ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.At a press conference here, AAP leader Raghav Chadha claimed that since 2014, ninety-five per cent of cases registered by the investigative agencies have been against opposition leaders.Now after the formation of the INDIA alliance, the BJP is rattled.

The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday alleged that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be the first to be arrested as part of the BJP's plan to target top INDIA alliance leaders ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

At a press conference here, AAP leader Raghav Chadha claimed that since 2014, ninety-five per cent of cases registered by the investigative agencies have been against opposition leaders.

''Now after the formation of the INDIA alliance, the BJP is rattled. We have learnt from sources that they have hatched a plan to target top leaders from the INDIA alliance. The first arrest in this plan will be of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal,'' he said.

''The BJP knows it is losing all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. It is planning to get Kejriwal arrested so that AAP is not able to contest the polls,'' Chadha added.

The AAP leader also shared a list of those it claimed would be targeted by the investigative agencies.

''After Kejriwal, they will arrest Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and then Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. After these leaders, they will target Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and then top leaders of the Shiv Sena and the NCP in Maharashtra,'' he alleged.

There was no immediate reaction from the BJP on Chadha's allegations.

Kejriwal has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate for questioning on Thursday in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. Chadha said people vote for leaders like Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi, Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, Hemant Soren in Jharkhand, Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, K Chandrashekar Rao in Telangana, M K Stalin in Tamil Nadu, and Uddhav Thackeray in Maharashtra.

''Between 2014 and 2022, out of the total cases filed against leaders by agencies such as the ED and CBI, 95 per cent are against opponents of the BJP. During this time, cases have been registered against a total of 125 prominent leaders, with nearly 118 being leaders of opposition parties,'' he said.

Leaders such as Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Sanjay Raut, P Chidambaram, Farooq Abdullah, Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik have faced these cases.

''These cases have been pursued in a way that when the elections approach and the political landscape changes, they can summon these leaders. If these leaders still do not cooperate, they could be arrested and put in jail. The formation of the INDIA alliance during this time is a significant political development,'' he noted.

Several opposition parties have formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) to take on the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.