LS polls: Kejriwal's interim bail, BJP's bid to corner AAP on 'graft' spice up battle for Delhi

23/05/2024

As the general elections enter their sixth or penultimate phase, the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital have come into focus, with the ruling BJP at the Centre eyeing another clean sweep and Aam Aadmi Party hoping to send its first Lok Sabha MP from Delhi.

The BJP won all seven seats in the national capital in both the 2014 and 2019 general elections while the AAP, despite being the ruling party in 2015 and briefly in 2013 (for 49 days), never managed to win a single seat in the Lower House of Parliament.

This time, however, the AAP and the Congress are contesting the polls in the Capital as partners in the INDIA bloc, with the former contesting four seats and the latter three.

As part of the bargain, the AAP is also contesting one seat in Haryana and two in BJP-ruled Gujarat. However, the two parties opted for a friendly fight in AAP-ruled Punjab.

In Delhi, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party is contesting East Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi and New Delhi while the Congress has put up candidates in North-East Delhi, North-West Delhi and Chandni Chowk.

The AAP candidates are Kuldeep Kumar from East Delhi, Sahiram Pehalwan from South Delhi, Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi and Somnath Bharti from New Delhi.

While the Congress’ Lok Sabha picks in the national capital include Udit Raj from North-West Delhi (reserved SC seat), Jai Prakash Agarwal from Chandni Chowk and former JNU Student’s Union President Kanhaiya Kumar from North-East Delhi.

The BJP, which swept the 2019 polls in the national capital, dropped six of its seven MPs in Delhi this time, with actor turned politician Manoj Tiwari, the party’s sitting MP from North-East Delhi, being the only one retained.

The six new names in the BJP’s list of candidates for the national capital were Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk, Harsh Deep Malhotra from East Delhi, Yogender Chandolia from North-West Delhi, Ramvir Singh Bhiduri from South Delhi, Kamaljeet Singh Sehrawat from West Delhi and Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of late BJP veteran Sushma Swaraj from New Delhi.

Setting the cat amongst the pigeons just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the AAP national convenor was arrested after long hours of questioning by an ED team at his residence in connection with the Delhi excise policy case. The development came as a huge blow to the ruling party in the Capital, with several of its bigwigs–Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain–already behind bars on graft charges.

Even as the AAP rejoiced the Supreme Court’s grant of interim bail to Kejriwal in the liquor policy case, in what came as a shot in the arm for the ruling party in the Capital amid the campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls, the ED filed a chargesheet naming the AAP as an accused.

According to some reports, it was the first instance in the country of a political party being named in an alleged corruption case.

Allegations were also raised over alleged irregularities in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) and dated medicines at the flagship mohalla clinics that feature at the top of the party’s list of accomplishments.

However, while the BJP gunned for the AAP over these allegations, the latter received a major campaign boost following the grant of interim bail by the apex court till June 1.

Since coming out of Tihar jail, where he was lodged for over a month, the AAP supremo gave speed and purpose to his party’s campaign, which, till then, was being led by his wife Suntia Kejriwal.

In addition to headlining roadshows and public meetings in Delhi for the party’s candidates and those of ally Congress, Kejriwal has also held rallies in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Punjab.

However, just when the AAP’s campaign seemed to be going through the gears, the Swati Maliwal assault case cast a fresh spanner in its works. Days after Kejriwal’s release and weeks before voting in Delhi, the AAP Rajya Sabha MP alleged that she was assaulted at the CM’s residence by his former aide Bibhav Kumar.

As the details of Maliwal’s alleged assault came out, with the former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson claiming to have been ‘kicked’, ‘slapped’, and ‘dragged around’ inside the CM’s Civil Lines residence, the BJP went for the jugular as it hit out at the AAP over its flip-flop after initially owning ul to the ‘assault’ and promising ‘strict action’.

However, in a stunning U-turn, senior AAP leader Atishi dismissed Maliwal’s assault charge at the CM’s former principal secretary Bibhav Kumar, while labelling the Rajya Sabha MP as a ‘BJP agent’.

In response to the case registered by Delhi Police on Maliwal’s complaint, Bibhav lodged a counter-complaint earlier, accusing her of gaining ‘unauthorised entry’ into the CM’s Civil Lines residence and ‘verbally abusing’ him.

However, despite writing to Delhi Police that he was ready to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into the assault claim, the CM’s former aide was arrested and remanded in five days of police custody. The sleuths also recreated the scene at CM Kejriwal’s residence while going over the CCTV footage.

Meanwhile, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed to investigate the Maliwal case.

As the political temperature in the national capital shoots up, rivalling the mercury amid the prevailing heatwave, and the campaign pitch grows shriller, with the liquor policy case and the Maliwal episode adding to the discourse, a keen contest awaits.

While the BJP is eyeing an encore after winning all seven seats by handsome margins in 2019, INDIA partners AAP and the Congress are hoping for windfall electoral gains in the national capital this time.