MLAs meet Delhi CM’s wife; say he must not resign

AAP lawmakers met Sunita Kejriwal, supporting Arvind Kejriwal's continuation as Delhi's CM from jail. BJP accused of pressuring him to resign.

Ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lawmakers on Tuesday met jailed chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita Kejriwal, and backed his continuation as Delhi’s top elected official and running the government from Tihar Jail, people aware of the matter said.

AAP MLAs after meeting Sunita Kejriwal at the CM’s House in Civil Lines on Tuesday. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

“The MLAs told Sunita Kejriwal that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will exert pressure, they will give various arguments that Arvind Kejriwal must resign from the chief minister’s (CM) post. They will run a campaign to compel him to resign...It is the BJP’s policy to force the CM to resign. Now that Sunita Kejriwal is the only one who will be able to meet the CM Arvind Kejriwal and talk to him, she will be our only medium to take the party’s message to the CM and bring his message for the party,” AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj said, addressing the media outside the CM’s residence after the meeting was over. “All MLAs requested her to give their message to the CM that Arvind Kejriwal was, is, and will be the chief minister of Delhi,” Bharadwaj said.

An AAP leader said 55 MLAs attended the meeting while three legislators — Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and Satyendra Jain — are in jail, and four others were out of Delhi. The AAP has 62 lawmakers in the 70-member assembly while the BJP has the remaining eight.

The meeting was convened after Sunita Kejriwal made her first-ever public address on Sunday at a show of strength and unity at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) weeks before the general elections. She called her husband “a lion” who will not be “behind bars” for long.

AAP officials said that after meeting the MLAs, Sunita Kejriwal separately met AAP councillors, who told her that Arvind Kejriwal should not resign from the post of the Delhi CM, and should continue to run the government from jail.

Meanwhile, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said a power struggle was going on within the AAP and no one trusted anyone. “In the court yesterday [Monday] Arvind Kejriwal exposed the names of [ministers] Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj in the excise scam. Sunita Kejriwal is trying to take over the party because she knows that Arvind Kejriwal has committed corruption and chances of him coming out of jail are nil,” said Sachdeva.