"If there's anyone who thinks...": Atishi after Kejriwal issues first order as Delhi CM from ED custody
Mar 24, 2024
New Delhi [India], March 24 : Amid continuing protests by the ruling AAP against the arrest of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the liquor policy case, Delhi Minister Atishi said despite being in the custody of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED), the former was still alive to the needs and problems of the people in the national capital.
According to sources, CM Arvind Kejriwal issued his first executive order from ED custody earlier, on Sunday.
Reading out from the copy of the order issued by Kejriwal at a press conference in the national capital, Atishi said on Sunday, "Even in this situation, he is not thinking about himself but the people of Delhi and their problems."
"Yesterday, when this document came to me along with his direction, I had tears in my eyes. If there's anyone who thinks about the bread-and-butter issues of the people, their problems related to water supply and cleaning of sewer lines, even under such extreme duress, it is Arvind Kejriwal," the AAP leader said.
"Arvind Kejriwal does not think of himself only as the chief minister of Delhi. He considers the two crore people of Delhi as his family members. He has been running Delhi for the last nine years in the same way as the head of a family takes care of his loved ones," the AAP leader added.
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) arrested Kejriwal on March 21, hours after the Delhi High Court rejected his petition seeking to restrain the central probe agency from taking any coercive action against him.
The case pertains to alleged irregularities and money laundering in the formulation and implementation of Delhi's now-scrapped excise policy.
Several AAP leaders were also detained on Friday by Delhi Police while leading a protest against the arrest of the AAP supremo.
The ED, which was given the custody of Delhi CM till March 28 by a lower court earlier, alleged that the AAP is the major beneficiary of the proceeds of crime generated in the alleged liquor scam.
Two prominent AAP leaders, Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, are already in judicial custody in the same case.