Painting the Opposition corrupt

The potential arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, Hemant Soren, and Tejashwi Yadav could open the electoral competition in Delhi, Punjab, Jharkhand, and Bihar to the advantage of the ruling BJP.

Action-packed times are ahead for India as a little over two months are left before the general elections are announced.

Besides the orchestrated carnival around the inauguration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, there is speculation in political circles that two chief ministers and a deputy chief minister may soon be arrested.

The buzz is that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren may be arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The Deputy Chief Minister in question is Tejashwi Yadav of Bihar.

Their potential arrest could open the electoral competition in Delhi, Punjab, Jharkhand, and Bihar to the advantage of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Kejriwal and Soren are being investigated in money-laundering cases by the ED while Yadav is being investigated in the railway land-for-jobs scam.

Earlier there was speculation that Kejriwal would resign and perhaps another Aam Adami Party (AAP) leader would step into his shoes. After having avoided the ED summons three times claiming that they were “illegal” and ‘politically motivated”, Kejriwal has decided to stay on and fight.

His decision was underwritten by a ‘survey” of 2.38 million households under the ‘Mein Bhi Kejriwal’ campaign. Apparently, it showed that overwhelmingly, the people want him to continue in office even if he is arrested.

The ED now has the options of sending him a fourth summons, seeking the help of the court, or raiding his residence and arresting him, as some AAP leaders have publicly speculated. If arrested, AAP leaders have resolved that Kejriwal would run the government from jail and officers and Cabinet ministers would go there to attend meetings. It was not a privilege Kejriwal allowed to his erstwhile comrades and ministers Satyendra Jain, Manish Sisodia, and Sanjay Singh. Instead, their portfolios were quickly redistributed after they were arrested.

Dramatic as it sounds, a detained Kejriwal may not be allowed to run the Delhi government from jail. It is quite possible that the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi may instead choose to dismiss the government citing failure of constitutional mechanisms.

Soren could meet the same fate as Kejriwal. He has skipped six ED summonses, a record of sorts. The sudden and unexplained resignation of Sarfaraz Ahmad, three-time MLA from Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), has raised speculation that Soren is preparing for succession with his wife Kalpana possibly contesting a by-election from the vacated assembly constituency.

It might be recalled that in 1997, days before his arrest in the fodder scam, then Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad appointed his wife Rabri Devi as Chief Minister. This had helped keep the party, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and its government intact even while he was in jail.

However, there may be two other contenders from within the Soren family. Sita Soren, Soren’s elder brother’s widow, has been running a campaign against officials of the JMM government accusing them of corruption, illegal mining, and malfeasance in mineral transport. Hemant Soren’s younger brother Basant Soren, a sitting legislator, may also nurture chief ministerial ambitions.

As of now, Hemant Soren, has ruled out his resignation and asked all legislators not to leave the state capital, Ranchi, for a week. This was after they gathered at his residence on January 3 in a show of support, suggesting that they believe precipitate action against the Chief Minister is imminent.

Yadav has already been questioned by the ED once in April 2023. He skipped a subsequent summons for December 27. Now he has been summoned on January 5, ostensibly after the questioning of Amit Katyal, a ‘close associate’ of the Lalu Prasad family, who was arrested by the ED in November.

The ED’s allegation is that in 2004-2009, Group-D appointments in the Indian railways were made in exchange for land transferred by candidates or their families to family members of the then Railways Minister Lalu Prasad and to a company linked to them, A K Infosytems Pvt Ltd, where Katyal served as director. The company was located at the Yadav family’s residence in Delhi’s New Friends’ Colony.

The ED might prefer to approach the courts to get a direction to arrest the chief ministers given the political sensitivity of the issue. If the court directs their arrest, the BJP will gain an important campaign plank that the Opposition leaders were corrupt and were obstructing investigations.

Kejriwal’s arrest is unlikely to make much of a difference to the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. The BJP won all seven seats in 2019 and may still be sitting pretty. It will weaken AAP, however, for the February 2025 assembly elections in Delhi.

With Kejriwal behind bars, his party would become weak and rudderless, and might well encourage the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to renew its alliance with the BJP. The party has been in bad shape after the demise of Prakash Singh Badal. Together, they could mount a better challenge to AAP in the state.

Hemant Soren’s detention could start a feud about succession in the JMM. In the 2019 general elections, the BJP won 12 of the 14 seats in alliance with the All Jharkhand Students Union. Hemant Soren has predicted that the I.N.D.I.A. bloc will win 13 of the 14 seats this time around. These plans will be destabilised if he is jailed, especially if it leads to the collapse of the JMM-Congress alliance government in the state.

Yadav’s potential arrest would put the RJD’s best organiser in jail. However, as Deputy Chief Minister is not a constitutional position, the ED could arrest Yadav, anytime it chooses to. Unlike in the case of Kejriwal and Soren, it may not need to take judicial cover by approaching the courts.

As just a minister in the Bihar government Yadav is more vulnerable. The recent arrests of state government ministers in Delhi and Tamil Nadu have not been successful in getting any relief from the courts.

(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.