High drama was witnessed outside Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence on Tuesday after his deputy Manish Sisodia went there and accused the Delhi Police of putting the former under house arrest. Police denied Kejriwal was under any kind of restraint.
The face-off at the residence of Kejriwal started after the Delhi Police on Tuesday denied the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s claims that Kejriwal has been put under house arrest.
Sisodia accused the Delhi Police of putting the AAP leader under house arrest as Kejriwal denied them the permission to convert nine stadiums in Delhi into temporary jails to lodged farmers in case they were arrested.
Earlier in the day, AAP tweeted: "Delhi Police has put Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal under house arrest after he visited farmers at Singhu border yesterday."
Later, the AAP took out a press release supporting the Bharat Bandh call against the farm laws and slammed the BJP for being "not just guilty but scared of Kejriwal", reiterating the claim that the chief minister of the union had been placed under house arrest.
The AAP statement read: "Our leader Arvind Kejriwal, is not just Modi-Shah's opponent but an elected Chief Minister of India's National Capital Territory of Delhi. It is shocking, to see the Delhi Police place him under house arrest at the directives of the BJP. This exposes the BJP's guilt in passing these wicked and anti-farmer laws. It may be recalled that the Delhi Govt denied the Home Ministry permission to convert stadiums into jails and incarcerate them, which the AAP Govt denied. BJP is scared of popular support for Arvind Kejriwal, among farmers and has taken the 'Emergency' like draconian step of placing him under house arrest, beating up our MLAs and facilitating access to BJP leaders. We condemn this in the harshest terms possible and call it a national disgrace."
AAP workers protested the alleged house-arrest of the Delhi chief minister. Check out the pictures here:
The party, in the statement, expressed solidarity with "farmers brothers and sisters who have been protesting against anti-farmer farm laws". AAP said that the legislation was "passed unconstitutionally and illegally by the Modi government without any consultation whatsoever."
"These laws - which have no mention of the MSP, will only worsen the situation, for our farmer brothers and sisters, who are already suffering due to agrarian debts, farmer suicides and the economic recession. Farmers will be forced into slavery, by reducing them to farm labourers on their own farmland. Our farmer sisters and brothers are being labelled as terrorists, for fighting for their rights against their enslavement, which is appalling. Their protest at the Delhi border has been ignored, they've been called names and a protracted campaign has been run to harass them and discredit them, by an insensitive and arrogant BJP Govt," the AAP statement read.
The ruling party in Delhi had also organised a 'peaceful morcha' at Azad Maidan, led by farmers who arrived at the venue in bullock carts.
"There is a protracted attempt being made to somehow label these farmer protests, as a rural and farmer only issue, call them anti-national and discredit them, AAP's media-in-charge Preeti Sharma Menon said, "Fact is that farmers are our 'AnnaDaata', we owe it to them, for every morsel of food, we eat for our nourishment."
"People living in cities too, are ultimately the progeny of farmers. It is not us and them, it is our collective responsibility. We won't fail our farmers, we are in complete solidarity with them," she said.
During the day, hundreds of AAP leaders and supporters, including party MLAs, rallied at the ITO to demand that they be allowed to meet Kejriwal. As traffic flow was hampered in the area, police put up barricades to keep the protesters in check and diverted commuters on alternate routes.
(With inputs from agencies)
