There could be no “imminent arrest” of Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) but further legal actions could follow including the agency likely to issue fourth summons against the Delhi chief minister in the alleged excise policy case. AAP is wishing for a “political spectacle” if the ED moves to arrest Kejriwal, as it could become a rallying point for the party in elections.
Both Kejriwal and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren have been avoiding the ED summons, even as agency sources say there are “incriminating evidence” against them. Senior ED officers feel that the AAP chief is trying to “delay” the trial and the investigation process by creating a “political atmosphere”, which he thinks, may help him ahead of the elections.
The ED could move the court for directions after making a strong case of investigation being “impeded” by the CMs by ignoring the summons.
Sources in the opposition camp say it is the political strategy of Kejriwal and Soren to repeatedly avoid ED summons for appearance, as it fuels the narrative that ED is acting as a “political agency” to target their top leaders. “If the ED wants to act against Arvind Kejriwal, it might as well drag him from his house for arrest as that will show the political vindictiveness of this government and its handmaiden agency, the ED. Kejriwal will not appear before the ED,” an AAP source told News18.
Evidence Piling Up Against CM Soren
The raids at office and residential premises of Hemant Soren’s close associates, which include a senior IAS officer, have given ED more incriminating evidence against the Jharkhand chief minister, sources in ED said. Following the raids in office and residential premises of the Deputy Commissioner of Sahibganj, ED has seized 14 rounds of cartridges of banned weapons, a packet containing Rs 8 lakh hidden inside a government file and a laptop with information related to the land deals, News18 has learnt.
Soren’s latest letter to the ED is being studied by the legal team of the directorate. The three-page letter, dated January 2, called the summons by the ED “bad in law” and accused it of acting in a “motivated by extraneous” reasons. ED is now mulling the next legal option against the Jharkhand CM, which may “surprise him”, a source in the ED said.
Waiting to be an ‘Opposition’s Hero’?
AAP leaders have been daring the ED to act against Kejriwal, and all its top leaders on Wednesday night put out statements on X (formerly Twitter) that the ED was going to arrest Kejriwal on Thursday morning from his residence. The AAP had also gone public with such an apprehension earlier, but Kejriwal was not acted against. The CM himself did a press conference on Thursday questioning the timing of the ED’s summons.
According to the directorate’s officers, the ED has “enough” evidence to establish the “necessity to examine” the Delhi CM in the court of law. The statements given by the arrested accused members of Kejriwal’s party, and others indicate the Delhi CM’s “complicity in the scam”, ED officers told News 18.
ED had earlier arrested Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut after he skipped the ED summons in a probe – but it has not adopted that strategy later in the case of Soren and Kejriwal who have skipped seven and three summons respectively from the central agency.
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