Arvind Kejriwal must stay on as CM, run govt from jail, party MLAs tell wife Sunita | India News

NEW DELHI: Amid speculation that Sunita Kejriwal may replace her jailed husband as CM, AAP legislators and corporators met her Tuesday to convey that Arvind Kejriwal should not step down, but run govt from jail.
AAP MLAs met her at the CM’s residence hours before she was to speak to him via video conferencing. He was sent to Tihar Jail on Monday, in judicial custody, for 15 days.

“All MLAs requested her to give the message to Kejriwal that he was, is and will always be Delhi CM as 2 crore people were standing with him,” minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said.

‘Sunita Kejriwal key link between party and CM’
They added that BJP will create pressure on him to resign and might even launch a campaign against him but he should stay CM.”

Arrested on March 21 by Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case related to the now-scrapped excise policy of 2021-22, Kejriwal was sent to judicial custody on April 1 after the investigating agency interrogated him for 11 days.

Party functionaries said 55 AAP legislators met Sunita. Of the remaining seven MLAs, four were out of Delhi and three – Kejriwal, former deputy CM Manish Sisodia and former health minister Satyendar Jain – are in jail.

A group of 110 municipal councillors of AAP also met her later in the day and insisted that her husband should continue as CM.
This is the first time that elected representatives of AAP in Delhi have met the CM’s wife since his arrest. “Various party functionaries, MLAs and councillors were trying to meet Sunita Kejriwal but the timing was not right. We were busy with protests, demonstrations and the ‘maha’ rally. Today, they met her and even had a one-on-one discussion with her,” said Bharadwaj.

AAP sources said Sunita will be a crucial link between her husband and party functionaries. With the court allowing her to connect with Kejriwal through video conferencing, Sunita will communicate party, election and governance-related issues to him and will also carry his messages to party functionaries.
Party sources confirmed that Sunita’s involvement in party affairs has increased in the past few days. Apart from taking centre stage at the March 31 rally of the opposition ‘INDIA’ bloc, where she read out the AAP national convener’s “message” sent from ED custody, she has also addressed three digital media briefings.