Days after being granted bail in a corruption case, prominent opposition leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal resigned from his job.
Due to an alcohol sales ordinance that has since been abandoned, Kejriwal served five months in jail. He has refuted the accusations leveled at him.
He has declared that he will only assume the role in the event that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is re-elected in the next assembly elections.
Atishi, a senior minister in Delhi and Kejriwal’s colleague, will succeed him as the head of state, the party declared on Tuesday.
Since winning the capital city’s assembly elections in 2013, the AAP has ruled over Delhi, emphasizing social programs for The party achieved 62 seats in the 70-seat parliament in 2020, nearly replicating its results from the previous election, in which it secured 67 seats.
Over the weekend, Kejriwal made known that he intended to step down as chief minister, stating that he would only take office if the people of Delhi granted him a “certificate of honesty”.
“I got justice from the legal court, now I will get justice from the people’s court,” he stated to reporters.
In order to better synchronize the Delhi elections with the approaching elections in Maharashtra state, Kejriwal has suggested for moving the elections from February to November of next year.
But according to experts, that is unlikely to occur.
Elections in India cannot be scheduled fewer than six months prior to an assembly term’s end unless the assembly is dissolved early. Additionally, the Election Commission considers factors like weather, festivals, and electoral roll revisions before announcing elections.
The primary opposition party to the AAP in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has referred to Kejriwal’s resignation as a “publicity stunt” intended to elicit sympathy from the public.
Kejriwal, a fervent opponent of corruption, was the third AAP leader to be taken into custody for allegedly violating the now-repeated alcohol sales rules.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia were also detained in connection with the matter. Singh was released on bond in April, and Sisodia was granted bail in August following a 17-month incarceration.
In 2021, the AAP announced a program that they claimed would reduce sales on the illicit market, boost income, and guarantee a fair allocation of liquor licenses.
A few months later, after Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena blamed AAP, it was revoked of exploiting rules to benefit private liquor barons.
The AAP denies the charges and has accused the BJP of using investigating agencies to unjustly target opposition leaders, a charge it denies.
Atishi, 43, has become the youngest and third woman to serve as Delhi’s chief minister, holding portfolios in water, finance, power, and education. Born to Marxist professors, she studied at Delhi University and Oxford.
Atishi joined AAP in 2013 and has contributed to overhauling Delhi’s public schools. She was elected to the Delhi assembly in 2020 and recently went on an indefinite hunger strike to highlight the water crisis.
(BBC)
