Kejriwal holds meet with AAP MLAs, councillors after Sisodia, Jain resignations

The meeting with AAP elected representatives comes a day after two top Delhi ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain, who are in jail over allegations of corruption, resigned from the government.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal chaired a high-level meeting with Aam Aadmi Party MLAs and councillors amid the political crisis plaguing his government. Following the meet, he addressed a briefing wherein he slammed the Centre over the arrest of his former deputy Manish Sisodia.

The meeting with AAP elected representatives comes a day after two top Delhi ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain, who are in jail over allegations of corruption, resigned from the government.

Sisodia was arrested on Sunday after an eight hour grilling by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with alleged regularities in the implementation of now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. He was produced in a special CBI court on Monday which sent him to central agency's custody till March 4.

In his resignation letter, Sisodia had cried conspiracy against Kejriwal by those who were scared of the AAP convenor's politics of truth. Rejecting charges against him as baseless, Sisodia said he was not scared of going to the jail for following the path of truth.

Sisodia was holding 18 portfolios including those earlier held by Satyendar Jain, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case in May last year. He has been lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail since then.

Earlier in the day, Kejriwal recommended the inclusion of Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj in his council of ministers, a Delhi government official said. The chief minister distributed over a dozen portfolios including home, finance, education, power and planning that Sisodia had held among ministers Raaj Kumar Anand and Kailash Gahlot.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal holds meeting with Aam Aadmi Party MLAs. (Twitter/ANI)