Is the future of AAP bleak? With 3 big leaders arrested, should Kejriwal be worried?

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has lost three top leaders to arrests in less than two years. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested the Arvind Kejriwal-led party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Wednesday evening (4 October) in its money laundering investigation in the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy case.

Singh is the third high-profile AAP leader to have been arrested by a central agency after former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and ex-Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain.

Let’s take a closer look at the cases against these AAP leaders and how their arrest could impact the party’s future.

Satyendar Jain

Former Delhi minister and senior AAP leader Satyendar Jain was arrested last May in a money laundering case.
He was accused of laundering money to the tune of nearly Rs 16.5 crore over two periods in 2010-12 and 2015-16 through four companies allegedly linked to him.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered a case against Jain in 2017. The ED arrested him last year in the money laundering case based on the CBI’s FIR alleging that he acquired assets in the name of various persons from 14 February 2015 to 31 May 2017, “disproportionate” to his known sources of income.

The AAP leader is currently out on bail on medical grounds. Last week, the Supreme Court extended his interim bail till 9 October.

Manish Sisodia

Sisodia is behind bars in the Delhi excise policy case. The CBI arrested him on 26 February this year in connection with the alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-withdrawn liquor policy.

The CBI FIR alleged that Sisodia, then Delhi excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, and two other senior excise department officials were “instrumental in recommending and taking decisions pertaining to excise policy for the year 2021-22 without the approval of competent authority with an intention to extend undue favours to the licensee post tender”.

A Supreme Court bench is hearing Sisodia’s bail application in the case today. As per an NDTV report, the apex court asked where the evidence is against the AAP leader, except for the statement of businessman Dinesh Arora – who is himself an accused.

Since his arrest, the AAP leader, who held multiple portfolios in the Kejriwal government, has been unsuccessful in securing bail.

In March, both Sisodia and Jain resigned from the Delhi Cabinet. While Sisodia was Delhi’s deputy chief minister and held several key portfolios, including education, Jain was Delhi’s health and prisons minister.

Sanjay Singh

Sanjay Singh is the second prominent AAP leader apprehended in the alleged Delhi liquor scam. His arrest on Wednesday came hours after the ED conducted raids at his residence in New Delhi.

According to Indian Express, Singh’s name featured in the central agency’s prosecution complaint filed last December. The ED said that businessman Arora, who has turned into an approver in the liquor case, claimed that Singh introduced him to Sisodia. “On request of Singh… arranged cheques amounting to Rs 82 lakh (handed over to Sisodia) for collection of party funds for upcoming assembly elections in Delhi,” the complaint alleged.

On Tuesday, a Delhi court allowed Arora and another accused Raghav Magunta Reddy, the son of a YSR Congress Party MP M Srinivasulu Reddy, to become approvers in the money laundering probe by the ED in the excise policy case.

Singh’s arrest came as a shock even for the AAP. “It is a blow to us, but we will deal with this too like we have done with other issues in the past,” an AAP leader told The Hindu.

What about AAP’s future?

Singh’s arrest does not bode well for the AAP, which is a constituent of the Opposition INDIA bloc that will take on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

As per The Hindu, Singh, a member of AAP’s political affairs committee, had covered the “void” left in the party after Sisodia’s arrest.

The former Delhi education minister, who was Kejriwal’s most trusted aide, had held 18 of the 33 government departments. More than that, Sisodia helped the party in creating a ‘Delhi Model’ that promised robust policy and governance. As India Today noted in March, “Jain did the heavy lifting but Sisodia is the main person”.

The AAP, which was already reeling from the loss of its two important leaders, has now suffered a third setback with Singh’s arrest.

Singh was a “bridge” between AAP and other Opposition parties, as per Indian Express. He often accompanied Delhi chief minister Kejriwal and AAP’s Raghav Chadha to the meetings of the INDIA alliance. AAP’s ‘vocal’ voice in Rajya Sabha, Singh remained at the forefront of the party’s attacks on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the newspaper noted.

“He is a very senior member of the party and has a very astute political understanding. He has, over the past few years, built links with non-BJP parties, including Congress. That he is accompanying Kejriwal ji in his meetings with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee as well as Uddhav Thackeray is a clear indication of his stature in the party as well as among Opposition leaders,” a senior AAP leader told Indian Express.

With only months left in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, AAP’s new challenge is to deal with Singh’s absence, who as a party leader told the newspaper “has been a big support” to Kejriwal since Sisodia’s arrest.

According to The Hindu, the AAP will now have to prime other leaders to take on Singh’s responsibilities. The party already suspects more of its leaders can be arrested ahead of the upcoming general elections.

Hitting out at AAP, the BJP has said that Kejriwal, who it alleged was the “mastermind” of the now-scrapped liquor policy, will soon be behind bars.

Moreover, AAP, which was born out of an anti-corruption movement, is now in a soup as its three key leaders have been arrested on corruption charges. The arrests could affect the party’s poll plank of a corruption-free governance, noted The Hindu.

With inputs from agencies