Dozens of opposition supporters attempted to march to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home on Tuesday in the Indian capital, but were arrested by police as they protested the detention of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal last week.
Weeks before India’s general elections on April 19, Kejriwal, a prominent opposition figure whose Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has ruled the country’s capital region for ten years, was taken into custody by the financial crime-fighting agency on corruption accusations related to the city’s liquor policy.
The Enforcement Directorate’s attorney said that he was the “kingpin” of the investigation and that he should be questioned, leading to his remand to the agency’s custody until March 28.
Kejriwal has been “falsely arrested” in a “fabricated case,” according to his party, all of whose major officials are currently behind bars in relation to the issue. Political meddling is denied by both the federal government and Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The police broke halted Kejriwal’s supporters’ effort to march to Modi’s house on Tuesday, stopping them at a point around 5 kilometers (3 miles) away.
Images on television showed a number of demonstrators yelling slogans while sitting on the ground while police attempted to remove them into busses.
In other parts of the city, police detained some of the BJP supporters who were attempting to march to the Delhi Secretariat to demand that Kejriwal quit. They also used water cannon to scatter the group.
State BJP President Virendraa Sachdeva said news agency ANI, “The chief minister of Delhi is corrupt and dishonest. He will have to resign.”
AAP leaders declared that rallies calling for Kejriwal’s release would go on and that he would not step down.
Environment Minister Gopal Rai of Delhi told reporters, “I want to tell the federal government, this fight, this movement, will not stop because of the force of your police; this voice is reaching the entire nation.”
On Tuesday morning, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation announced via messaging platform X that some metro stations will remain closed “until further notice” for “security reasons”.
A notification advising that traffic might be hampered “in view of special Law & Order arrangement” in the city was released by Delhi Police.
As a member of the ‘INDIA’ bloc, which was established by over twenty political parties last year to jointly contest the BJP in the general elections, AAP is one of the group’s members.
The coalition intends to protest Kejriwal’s incarceration at a unified demonstration in Delhi on March 31 in an effort to restore unity following squabbling and fruitless attempts to share seats in order to field a united front against the BJP.
The US and Germany have called for a “fair” and “impartial” trial in the case in accordance with “basic democratic principles” in response to the high-profile arrest of Kejriwal, whose party also controls the northern Indian state of Punjab.
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