55 AAP MLAs meet Sunita, say jailed Kejriwal should not resign

 New Delhi: With pressure to resign mounting on the Delhi Chief Minister, the AAP MLAs, councillors and ministers on Tuesday met his wife Sunita Kejriwal and told her that Arvind Kejriwal should continue to run the government from jail. The leaders told Sunita Kejriwal that two crore people of the national capital stand with the Chief Minister and he should not resign at any cost.

Of the AAP’s 62 MLAs in Delhi, 55 including all the ministers were present during the meeting.

Calling it the BJP’s conspiracy to crush the AAP, city minister Atishi alleged that after the arrest of the party’s top leadership, the ED is now planning to arrest her, Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha and party MLA Durgesh Pathak.

“The BJP has approached me through someone very close. They have asked me to join the BJP and said this will save my political career. They have threatened that if I don’t switch over, the ED will arrest me within a month,” Atishi said at a press conference in the national capital.

The Delhi minister said the person who approached her on behalf of the BJP had said that the ruling party had “made up its mind on crushing everyone in the AAP.”

Atishi said: “First, they put the AAP’s leadership in jail. Satyendra Jain, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and now Kejriwal have been arrested. The BJP’s plan is to arrest four more AAP leaders in the next two months.”

The BJP, Atishi said, had thought that the party will break away after Kejriwal’s arrest. “But after the rally at Ramlila Maidan on Sunday, the BJP thinks the arrest of four leaders was not enough,” she said.

The BJP, however, junked the AAP leader’s allegations as “baseless.” Party leader R.P. Singh said: “I too can say that Saurabh Bharadwaj called me up and requested me to protect them from Kejriwal, who wants to put them behind bars and make Sunita Kejriwal the Chief Minister of Delhi.”

The BJP leader said: “The truth is that action will be taken against all whose names are involved in the matter. It is clear that the fight for the CM post has begun in the AAP. Bharadwaj and Atishi are on one side and Sunita Kejriwal and her jailed husband are on the other.”

After the AAP ministers and legislators, the party corporators also met Sunita Kejriwal in the evening. The legislators and corporators urged her to communicate to Arvind Kejriwal their message that he should keep running the government from behind bars without tendering his resignation.

The BJP, however, questioned Kejriwal’s continuation in office while being behind bars. The party said the people of the national capital deserve a better Chief Minister who can provide an honest and transparent government.

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia accused Kejriwal of “double standards”, noting that he took resignations from Sisodia and Jain but has refused to resign following his arrest in the excise case.