Two days after he was released on bail in the excise policy corruption case, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday announced he would resign and would not return to occupy the CM’s chair unless people gave him “certificate of honesty”.
He also demanded holding early elections for Delhi assembly in November along with Maharashtra.
Kejriwal said he would convene a meeting of AAP MLAs in the next couple of days so that a new party leader can be appointed as the next Delhi Chief Minister.
“I will only sit on CM’s chair after people give me a certificate of honesty. Want to give ‘agnipariksha’ after coming out of jail,” the AAP national convener said.
“I will become Chief minister and Manish Sisodia deputy CM only when people say we are honest,” he added.
Kejriwal alleged that the BJP tried to prove that he was corrupt since the ruling party at the centre cannot provide good schools and free electricity to people because they are corrupt. “ We are honest,” Kejriwal remarked.
He also charged that government kept implicating non-BJP CMs and cited instances of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerji, and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, who had went to jail and had quit the august office for some time before returning.
But, he defended his decision of not resigning from the Delhi CM post. Kejirwal told the gathering that they must have read in newspapers that even Supreme Court in a hearing wanted to know what’s wrong in him running the government from the jail.
False cases
“They slap false cases against non-BJP chief ministers. If they are arrested, I urge them not to resign but run the government from jail,” the Delhi chief minister said.
“I didn’t resign (after arrest in excise policy case) because I respect democracy and the Constitution is supreme for me,” Kejriwal said. The CM asserted that only AAP can stand up to the BJP’s “conspiracies”.
He also referred to his quitting the CM’s post in 2014 over the Jan Lokpal Bill, just 49 days after assuming power, and said, “I resigned then for my ideals. I do not have a lust for power.”
Kejriwal’s announcement stirred the Delhi political circles, with the BJP dubbing it as a “drama” meant to gain sympathy as they said that the CM is a master of “political manoeuvring”.
BJP leader Shazia Ilmi in a self-made video said that the Delhi Chief Minister said that he should have resigned a long time ago.
Questioning why he didn’t resign earlier, Ilmi in a self-made video said, “Arvind Kejriwal is a master of political manoeuvring. He knows that he should have resigned in those 5 months when he was in jail...He is deliberately talking about resignation as this is the only way to get sympathy. He should have resigned a long time ago. I think the people of Delhi have completely understood his reality.”