The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday arrested Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in a money laundering case linked to a land scam. Soren’s arrest has come as a huge blow to the opposition INDIA front ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Only a few days ago, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had severed ties with the INDIA front to return to the BJP fold. This has prompted many to ask if Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was the next to be arrested by the ED in the liquor scam case.
The ED has been sending summons to Kejriwal but the AAP leader has routinely ignored those notices from the federal probe agency. Sushma Swaraj’s daughter, Bansuri Swaraj, on Wednesday asked Kejriwal why he was ignoring ED summons. She said, “Why are you (Arvind Kejriwal) afraid? You are disregarding the law by disrespecting a summon. As per the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), it is necessary for everyone to appear before the agencies whenever they are summoned.”
VIDEO | “Why are you (Arvind Kejriwal) afraid? You are disregarding the law by disrespecting a summon. As per the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), it is necessary for everyone to appear before the agencies whenever they are summoned,” says BJP leader @BansuriSwaraj on… pic.twitter.com/Kj4NnNK6Ad
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) January 31, 2024
It’s believed that the ED has asked Kejriwal to appear before the agency on 2 February. AAP MP Sanjay Singh and former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia are already in jail in the liquor scam case.
Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva told PTI that ‘Our advice to Kejriwal is that he should appear for questioning before the ED.’
The AAP, meanwhile, has said that its legal experts were studying the fresh ED summon and the party will decide its actions accordingly.