Nidhi Razdan: Kejriwal vs Modi: ED summons adds fuel to high-stakes political showdown in India

Gulf News

In India, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s summons by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the alleged liquor policy case marks a significant escalation in the Modi government’s face off with the opposition.  Kejriwal skipped the Nov. 2 summons citing his election campaign in the states going to the polls and called the ED summons “vague”, saying it appeared to be a “fishing and roving inquiry”. But the story is far from over.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/arvind-kejriwal-defies-ed-summons-in-india-what-next-1.99129796  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #India #Modi

Transcript

00:00The Enforcement Directorate's summons to AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

00:09is the big political story at the moment.

00:12Mr Kejriwal has decided to skip the summons.

00:14He has written to the Enforcement Directorate saying he's busy campaigning for the upcoming

00:18state polls and has dashed off to Madhya Pradesh instead.

00:21But he's also called the ED summons as vague, as in the nature of a phishing and roving

00:27inquiry which doesn't specify in what capacity he's being summoned, whether it's as a witness

00:32or as a suspect and so on.

00:34The story, of course, is not going to end there.

00:36The ED, remember, does have significant powers and is very likely going to issue him a fresh

00:41summons and he will eventually be forced to appear before them.

00:45The question, though, is, will Mr Kejriwal be arrested by the ED?

00:50That is a very likely possibility.

00:52And this all has huge repercussions for the Aam Aadmi Party.

00:56If you look at the party which came to power a decade ago and came into the headlines a

01:00decade ago on a massive anti-corruption plank, the string of arrests by investigating agencies,

01:07the raids that their leaders and others have faced over the last couple of years or so,

01:12they have to an extent dented the Aam Aadmi Party's image.

01:15Though at the same time, voters also realize that most of the ED's cases in the last 10

01:20years, the political cases at least, have been against opposition politicians alone.

01:25So voters aren't stupid, they realize what's happening here.

01:28But the fact that higher courts have also denied bail to AAP leaders, like the Supreme

01:33Court denying bail to Manish Shishodiya in the liquor policy case only days earlier,

01:38that too could have an impact amongst voters, which always saw the AAP on a very clean anti-corruption

01:45plank.

01:46But for the AAP, there are other repercussions because Mr Kejriwal is their convener, he's

01:49their leader, and if he is indeed arrested, the party has now gone into a huddle to figure

01:54out who exactly would lead them into the state polls and more importantly, the general

01:59elections, if Mr Kejriwal is out of action for some time.

02:03It's explosive times and the final act has not yet been played.

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