While farmers blocked several highways into the capital, Delhi’s bandh played out outside chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on Tuesday — with his party claiming that he was under “house arrest”, a claim the police denied.
At 10.29am, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party tweeted: “BJP’s Delhi Police has put Hon’ble CM Shri @ArvindKejriwal under house arrest ever since he visited farmers at Singhu Border yesterday. No one has been permitted to leave or enter his residence.”
In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, the CPM’s Subhashini Ali and Dalit activist Chandrashekhar Azad were confined to their homes by the police to prevent them from joining the bandh.
Deputy commissioner of police (North Delhi) Anto Alphonse replied to Kejriwal’s charge with a picture of only five security personnel outside his gate beside a few barricades and a police car. He tweeted: “This claim of CM Delhi being put on house arrest is incorrect. He exercises his right to free movement within the law of the land. A picture of the house entrance says it all.”
On the other side of the barricades outside Kejriwal’s gate, the mayors of Delhi’s three municipal corporations — ruled by the BJP — have been on a sit-in since Monday demanding Rs 13,000 crore from the Delhi government. They were joined by senior party leaders, including MP Meenakshi Lekhi, on Tuesday.
AAP leaders, who protested near the income tax office on Tuesday morning, as part of the bandh, soon rushed to Kejriwal’s house where they were stopped 100 metres from the main gate. — on the opposite end from where the BJP was protesting. While police offered to take some of them inside, they are yet to explain why all — including MLAs, MPs and municipal councillors — were not allowed. Around 200 police personnel and central forces remained on Flagstaff Road through the day between the BJP and AAP gatherings.
His partymen were allowed in through a side entrance after which Kejriwal came out and said, “I wanted to spend some time on the border with the farmers today, not as a CM, but as a sewadar. I wanted to show my support to them by sitting with them for half-an-hour or so. I think they got to know about my plan, and so they did not let me know. But even though I could not go, I was praying from my home for the movement of the nation to be successful.”
He added, “The Centre then decided to let the farmers enter Delhi, and they asked the Delhi government for permission to convert nine stadiums in Delhi into jails... But we decided to stand in support of the farmers, which I think helped the farmers’ movement. Since that time, the central government is angry with us for not converting the stadiums into jails.”The “house arrest” evoked scepticism. Activist Smita Gupta wrote on Facebook, “How come it’s become about Kejriwal in Delhi? AAP is beyond belief. Towing the Sanghi distraction from farmers issues.”
Entrepreneur and the former head of Twitter’s politics and government department, Raheel Khursheed, also tweeted, “Reminder that Mr Kejriwal supported the suspension of civil/political liberties in Kashmir post Aug 5 2019, perhaps not realising that he too could be at the receiving end of similar measures — albeit much milder in scope & scale. At least for now.”
BJP leaders soon disclosed CCTV footage of the chief minister attending a wedding on Monday night, and Alphonse claimed that Kejriwal had left his home at 8pm and returned at 10pm, unobstructed.
