Oppn Writes to PM Over Arrest of Party Leaders by Central Agencies; AAP's Big Protest Campaign from Today | Top Points

The Aam Aadmi Party is set to hold a door-to-door campaign in Delhi on Sunday over the arrest of its leaders Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain. Meanwhile, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court extended former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia’s CBI custody till March 6, in the excise policy scam case. Several AAP leaders were seen raising slogans outside the court on Saturday, just a few meters away from the party office in Delhi. They wanted to protest outside the Delhi BJP office, but barricades were put up by the Police there.

Nine opposition leaders including Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sisodia’s arrest. They have stated that the action appears to suggest that “we have transitioned from being a democracy to an autocracy”.

Here are some top points:

• Manish Sisodia was confronted with his former secretary C Arvind and then Excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna by the CBI. He is yet to be confronted with two more critical witnesses whose identity has not been disclosed by the agency.
• AAP protesters continued their demonstration on Saturday and sat on the road and carried placards reading messages such as “Modi Jab Jab Darta Hai, Police ko Aage Karta Hai” and “Manish Sisodia Tujhe Salaam”.
• AAP workers will hold a door-to-door campaign against Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain’s arrest from today. According to reports, they will speak with the people of Delhi and explain to them how “innocent ministers” are being trapped in false cases.
• Notably, AAP is all set to sound the poll bugle with a massive party workers convention scheduled to be held in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur on March 5.
• Manish Sisodia was arrested in a corruption case related to the now-scrapped excise policy, and CBI has been directed to produce him before the court on Monday.
• The CBI told the court that Sisodia was sent to its custody on February 27 and the day after was consumed in proceedings conducted in his petition which was filed before the Supreme Court, and thus, no examination or interrogation of the accused took place on that day.
• Sisodia was also confronted during this period with some key witnesses of the prosecution case on certain material aspects, though the attitude and behaviour of the accused during these confrontations was totally uncooperative and evasive, the CBI said.
• AAP claimed that the CBI is aware that Sisodia will eventually be proven innocent since there is no evidence against him, “but the central government would consider it a victory if they could keep Manish Sisodia in jail for as long as possible through an unfair process”.
• Satyendar Jain is currently in Tihar Jail in a money laundering case. CBI had alleged that Jain and his family set up four shell firms – companies with no real business – to launder ₹ 11.78 crores in 2011-12 and ₹ 4.63 crore in 2015-16.
• Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal forwarded the names of AAP MLAs Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj to the Lieutenant Governor for their appointment to the Cabinet, a day after Sisodia and Jain resigned from their posts on Tuesday.
• Kejriwal had alleged AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain were arrested just to “sabotage the good work being done” in Delhi’s education and health sectors while claiming that the two former ministers would walk out of jail if they join BJP.
• AAP senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the party’s struggle against the central government will continue in the courts, streets, and Parliament, saying the “dictatorship of the Narendra Modi government has reached its peak”. Singh alleged that the Modi government’s actions show that it wants to keep India uneducated.
• On Saturday, a School Management Committee coordinator was arrested in Delhi for allegedly pasting a poster supporting Manish Sisodia, arrested in a corruption case, at the main gate of a government school.
• The BJP on Thursday claimed that the Delhi government had set up “I love Manish Sisodia” desks in state-run schools to rally support for the arrested leader, a charge denied by the AAP dispensation. A case was registered against Gazala under section 3 of the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Public Property Act.

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