India’s opposition parties are accusing the government of “match-fixing” ahead of a general election later this month, and a court has ruled that Delhi’s chief minister, the main opposition leader, must be detained for another two weeks. It was given down.
On Monday, a court ruled that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be remanded in judicial custody till April 15 and sent to Delhi’s notorious Tihar Jail.
Kejriwal, who has been accused of corruption, heads the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has ruled Delhi since 2015 and is part of a coalition of opposition parties united to fight Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). is a member of .
The court’s ruling puts Kejriwal in custody at a critical time in the AAP-opposition coalition’s campaign, just before national elections starting April 19, when Modi is seeking a third term in power.
Kejriwal was dramatically arrested from his home two weeks ago, the first time a sitting prime minister has been detained. He is accused of being the “mastermind” of an alleged government fraud in which he received around 1 billion rupees (£9.5 million) in corrupt deals and kickbacks from a new alcohol licensing policy.
This is the third extension the court has granted to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the central government agency leading the investigation, to keep Kejriwal in custody.
Kejriwal and his party ministers termed the incident a “political conspiracy” to weaken the opposition and “crush” AAP before elections. Several other AAP leaders have also been jailed and are being interrogated in the same case. AAP said he had been “wrongfully arrested” in a “trumped-up” case.
The BJP government denied that there was any political motive in the case against Kejriwal and said the ED was completely independent.
“We are not putting him in jail,” senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal told Indian media on Monday. “We have nothing to do with it. The law is hunting down the evil that people have committed.”
Mr Kejriwal has been running the Delhi government from behind bars since his arrest and has vowed not to resign.
During Monday’s hearing, the ED alleged that Kejriwal had been “uncooperative” with the investigation and refused to give out his mobile and computer passwords. Kejriwal said he refused to provide the password, saying it would give the ED access to sensitive information about AAP’s election strategy and political alliances.
The opposition coalition, known by the acronym India, held a mass rally in Delhi over the weekend, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party government was using tax authorities to harass opposition parties and “match-fixing” elections.
The main opposition party, the National Congress Party, claimed that millions of party accounts had been frozen as part of the central government’s financial investigation, preventing it from campaigning. Over the weekend, notices were served to pay tens of billions of dollars in taxes.
Mr Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal was among those who spoke at the rally. “Kejriwal is a lion,” she said. “They won’t be able to keep him in jail for long.”
Kejriwal’s arrest and freezing of the Congress party’s accounts drew international condemnation amid concerns that it would affect India’s free and fair elections. The United States and Germany have expressed concern, and the United Nations has issued a statement calling for the protection of “political and civil rights” in India. India responded by summoning American and German diplomats.
In a statement last week, Amnesty International accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government of weaponizing financial and terrorism laws to go after political opponents.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party-led crackdown on peaceful dissent and anti-government groups has now reached a crisis point,” the human rights group said.
