Indian Supreme Court says Kejriwal will be out on bail until June 1 and has to return to pre-trial detention on June 2
\nNEW DELHI
\nIndia\u2019s top court gave temporary bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a graft case on Friday, allowing him to campaign in the ongoing general elections, boosting the opposition alliance of which he is a prominent figure.
\nThe Supreme Court said Kejriwal – a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi – would be out on bail until June 1, the last day of the nationwide seven-phase vote, and would have to return to pre-trial detention on June 2.
\nIndia began voting on April 19 and elections for more than half of the 543 seats in parliament have now been completed following the third phase of the vote on May 7.
\nThe two areas governed by Kejriwal\u2019s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – the National Capital Territory that includes New Delhi, and the northern state of Punjab – go to the polls on May 25 and June 1 respectively.
\nVotes will be counted on June 4 and results are expected to be announced the same day.
\n\u201cIt feels good to be back among you,\u201d Kejriwal, dressed in a dark collarless T-shirt, told supporters through the sun-roof of a vehicle soon after being released from Delhi\u2019s Tihar jail.
\nThousands of AAP supporters had gathered waving the party\u2019s yellow and blue flags, setting off firecrackers, shouting slogans and distributing sweets.
\n\u201cI have only one request for you, we have to come together to save the country from dictatorship,\u201d Kejriwal said. \u201cI am fighting with everything I have against this dictatorship. But 1.4 billion people will have to fight dictatorship,\u201d he said, referring to India\u2019s huge population.
\nThe court had said last week that it may consider granting Kejriwal temporary bail \u201cbecause of the elections\u201d while it heard an appeal against his arrest, as that hearing could take a while to conclude.
\nOpposition parties have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government of using investigative agencies to hurt its rivals, which the government denies.
\nOver the years Kejriwal has accused Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of damaging democracy, promoting corruption, throttling governance in Delhi, abusing their power and attacking the federal structure of the constitution among other things.
\nArrested
\nBJP spokesperson Shazia Ilmi said the party has always respected the verdicts of the highest court.
\n\u201cKejriwal will not be able to play the victim card. He can\u2019t say that he is being discriminated against, that all the agencies and courts are against him,\u201d she told ANI news agency, in which Reuters has a minority stake.
\n\u201cSecondly, and importantly, he has got interim bail, not freedom. He has to go back to jail on June 2,\u201d Ilmi added.
\nThe Enforcement Directorate, India\u2019s financial crime-fighting agency, arrested Kejriwal on March 21 in connection with corruption allegations related to the capital territory\u2019s liquor policy.
\nKejriwal\u2019s government and his AAP have denied the allegations. Modi and BJP say the investigating agencies are only doing their job and the government is not influencing them.
\nSupporters cheer during a press conference by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at the Aam Admi Party headquarters after India\u2019s Supreme Court gave temporary bail to the AAP national conveyor in a liquor policy case, in New Delhi, India, May 11, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS
\nKejriwal has been in pre-trial detention since April 1, and his wife Sunita has stepped in to campaign for his decade-old party which has been hobbled by the detention also of two other senior leaders in the same case.
\nMembers of the INDIA alliance of more than two dozen opposition parties – Modi\u2019s main challenger which includes the AAP – said they were pleased that Kejriwal had received bail.
\nMamata Banerjee, chief minister of the eastern state of West Bengal and a key INDIA member, said she was \u201cvery happy\u201d Kejriwal got bail. \u201cIt will be very helpful in the context of the current elections,\u201d she posted on X.
\nAbhishek Manu Singhvi, Kejriwal\u2019s lawyer, had argued that Kejriwal was arrested just before the vote to stop him from campaigning against Modi, who opinion polls suggest will win a comfortable majority and secure a rare third straight term.
\nED lawyers argued that giving bail to a politician just to campaign risked sending the message that there were different standards for such figures compared with other citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Indian Supreme Court says Kejriwal will be out on bail until June 1 and has to return to pre-trial detention on June 2 NEW DELHI India\u2019s top court gave temporary bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a graft case on Friday, allowing him to campaign in the ongoing general elections, boosting the opposition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-406473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n