Kejriwal skips ED summons; AAP, BJP hold parallel stirs

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday skipped the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) fifth summons for questioning in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the scrapped excise policy 2021-22 and, instead, led a protest by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders near BJP headquarters where he hit out at the ruling party at the Centre over alleged rigging of the Chandigarh mayoral polls.

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The Delhi BJP held a counterprotest against the alleged scams of the Delhi government at another part of Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Marg, prompting the police to shut the busy thoroughfare, which led to heavy traffic congestion on connecting roads such as Vikas Marg, IP Marg, Minto Road, and JLN Marg.

In a statement, an AAP official claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to arrest Kejriwal and topple his government but that the party would never let that happen. It dismissed the ED summons as illegal. The AAP maintained that Kejriwal would honour "legally sound summons".

On the heavily barricaded DDU Marg, which turned into a fortress with hundreds of security personnel deployed along with water cannons, Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart, Bhagwant Mann, joined the protest. The protesting CMS could not reach the BJP headquarters, located a few hundred metres from the AAP office on DDU Marg, due to barricading and heavy police presence.