BJP sees AAP as challenge, launched 'Operation Jhadoo' to crush us: Kejriwal

The BJP has launched 'Operation Jhadoo' to crush the AAP as the saffron party sees it as a challenge, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claimed on Sunday as he led a protest march towards the saffron party's headquarters here. He urged party workers and leaders to be braced for even bigger challenges. The AAP's march towards the BJP headquarters in the national capital was stopped midway as the police had heavily barricaded the roads. The protesters stopped around 50 metres from the office and dispersed, with the AAP later saying they ''waited for half an hour on the road for the police to come and arrest us but the BJP accepted its defeat''.

Kejriwal on Saturday said he and other AAP leaders would march to the BJP headquarters ''so that the prime minister can send anyone he wishes to jail''.

The BJP is saying it will send AAP MP Raghav Chadha and Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj to jail, he had claimed, hours after his aide Bibhav Kumar was arrested in connection with the ''assault'' on party MP Swati Maliwal.

Addressing party workers and leaders ahead of the march, Kejriwal said there will be bigger challenges ahead and asked the cadre to be prepared.

He referred to the arrest of Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia, and Satyendar Jain and said, ''Yesterday, they even arrested my PA. Raghav Chadha has just come back, now they are saying that he will also be arrested. They are saying that Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Kailash Gahlot will also be arrested soon.'' ''The prime minister has made up his mind to crush the Aam Aadmi Party, for which he has started 'Operation Jhadoo','' Kejriwal said.

A ''jhadoo'' or broom is the AAP's election symbol.

''How did I come to know about this? There are many people who go to meet the prime minister, and many of them know us too. So, after meeting him (Modi), they told us, and almost everyone has the same version, that the first thing the prime minister talks about is that these Aam Aadmi Party people are growing very fast,'' Kejriwal claimed.

''Before this party (AAP) grows too big and becomes a challenge for the BJP in the future, Aam Aadmi Party should be crushed here itself. Under this operation, big leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party will be arrested, they are being arrested,'' the Delhi chief minister claimed.

He also claimed that the AAP's bank accounts would be frozen in the coming days. The Enforcement Directorate's lawyer has already given a statement in the court that AAP's bank accounts will be frozen immediately after the elections, he charged.

Kejriwal, who is out on interim bail in the excise policy case, claimed that the AAP will be brought ''to the road'' by getting it to vacate its office. He, however, asserted that the AAP is ''not a party of a few people, it is a party of the dreams of 140-crore people''.

People of this country have never seen such work in 75 years, he said while highlighting AAP governments' work in Delhi and Punjab. ''This ideology, a government of this kind that works, can also run with such honesty. This ideology is spreading very fast in the country. And the dreams that the common man used to have about the government in this country, those dreams are now being realised,'' he said. Kejriwal said the AAP is now an idea and asked, ''You can arrest its leaders but how will you arrest this idea?'' The AAP supremo also issued a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

''I want to tell the prime minister that you can arrest one leader but my Mother India will give birth to 100 more leaders; you can arrest one Kejriwal, she will give birth to hundreds and thousands of Kejriwal,'' the Delhi chief minister said. ''You can try your luck.'' AAP has faced several allegations since it first formed the government in Delhi in 2015 but none of those have been proven to be true, Kejriwal asserted. ''Now they (BJP leaders) are saying that we were involved in a liquor scam. The public is asking them that if there was a liquor scam, where is the money and where has it gone. They are themselves saying in the Supreme Court that they have not been able to find even a single penny,'' he claimed.

''They are saying that the liquor scam is worth Rs 100 crore, then why haven't they found even Rs 100 in the raids? Where did all the money go? They have arrested our leaders under fabricated cases,'' he reiterated.

The AAP national convenor recalled that in the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections, the prime minister, during a rally in Abohar, had said that ''Kejriwal is a Khalistani terrorist''.

''He (Modi) had said, 'Kejriwal wants to carve out Khalistan and become prime minister of that country’. When the prime minister speaks such absurd things, we feel pity for the country that he is our prime minister. Such absurd comments do not behove a prime minister,'' Kejriwal said.

''Polling in Delhi is on May 25 and in Punjab it is on June 1. Let's see what kind of absurd things they say in the next 10-15 days. They will keep talking like this. These people can stoop to any level. The public needs to be careful,'' he added.

Kejriwal said the AAP and its leaders have ''gone through hell'' and at every stage, they went through ''Agni Pariksha (trial by fire)''. ''We have the blessings of Shri Bajrang Bali with us. We would have been finished by now had He been not with us for the last 10 years. God is with us, always walk on the path of truth, and don’t give up. We will come out of all the challenges because our intention is clear that we want to serve the country,'' he said. Senior AAP Leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, ''Now it is known that PM Modi cannot arrest Arvind Kejriwal.'' ''He cannot arrest our leaders, MLAs, councillors and workers. Modi got scared. We fulfilled our promise and now we are going back. PM Modi ran away after losing,'' he said as the AAP workers dispersed after their march to the BJP headquarters was stopped.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)