Arvind Kejriwal walks out of jail: What does it mean for BJP?

Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 21 in a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped excise policy.

The Aam Aadmi Party is buoyed by the release of two of its top leaders in recent weeks. Implicated in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail by the Supreme Court on Friday. His deputy Manish Sisodia was granted bail on August 9 in the same case.

The release of Kejriwal following six months of incarceration is expected to come as a shot in the arm for the party ahead of the Haryana elections. After talks of an alliance with Congress hit a dead end, the AAP fielded candidates in all 90 constituencies in a bid to make a mark in Haryana, which also happens to be Kejriwal’s birthplace.

"This is a big slap on the face of the BJP. They should feel ashamed that they put Arvind Kejriwal in jail in a false case...I congratulate everyone and there is excitement in Haryana. Arvind Kejriwal will come to Haryana and we will form the government in Haryana," AAP Haryana chief Sushil Gupta said.

The BJP sought to play down the release of Kejriwal and suggested that it won't impact AAP's prospects all that much. The party was quick to point out that the SC refused to quash the charges against the AAP chief while also holding his arrest by the CBI as legal.

"This is the fourth time that the courts of this country have found that the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal legal and valid...This also proves that not only is Arvind Kejriwal a kingpin in the liquor scam but also drowned in it from head to toe... Arvind Kejriwal has been asked to not sign any files and visit the CMO,” Delhi BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj said in a post on X demanding Kejriwal’s resignation on moral grounds.

In the national scheme of things, AAP figures as an adversary but never as a threat, barring the exception of Delhi where it has firmly consolidated its presence. In Punjab, the other state where it is in power, the BJP has never really been in the reckoning after its break-up with the Shirmani Akali Dal.

The Lok Sabha elections showed that the AAP still has a long way to go in terms of making its presence felt. The party bagged three Lok Sabha seats, shoring up a vote share of 1.11 percent. The situation wasn’t too different in Haryana either. The party failed to win the only seat it contested and its vote share stood at a meager 3.94 percent.

The Kejriwal-led party has struggled to make a mark in Haryana during its earlier outings as well. The party contested 46 seats in Haryana in 2019 but failed to open its account, finishing with less than 1 percent of the votes polled. It did not contest the 2014 Assembly elections in the state.

If at all, the AAP’s foray in Haryana may end up damaging the Congress more than the BJP. Despite being part of the INDIA bloc of Opposition parties on the national level, any votes that it manages to draw in Haryana is likely to cut into the Opposition’s votes rather than those of the BJP. That, in a tight contest, could even end up ruining the Congress’ chances of returning to power in the state after a decade-long hiatus.

So, how does the BJP stand to lose from Kejriwal’s release? Two immediate factors come to mind. The Supreme Court’s strong observations against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while ordering the release of Kejriwal will further strengthen the Opposition’s narrative that the BJP-led government at the Centre was “misusing agencies” to target political adversaries.

"CBI is a premier investigating agency. It's in public interest that CBI must be seen to be above... Effort must be made to remove perception that investigation (was) not carried out fairly. Perception matters...CBI should be like Caesar's wife, above suspicion," the top court said.

Pronouncing the verdict, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan questioned CBI for arresting the Delhi chief minister when he was about to get bail in the ED case and said that the agency must dispel the notion of being a "caged parrot".

This is also likely to strengthen the AAP's own attempts to paint Kejriwal and Sisodia as martyrs -- "honest leaders" who bore the "BJP's brunt" for their people-centric approach to governance.

This could hold specifically true for Delhi, where the AAP has managed to hold its own in elections despite facing the formidable duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in the course of the campaign.

In fact, the only perceptible threat that the BJP faces from Kejriwal’s release is the damage it does to its prospects, if any, of coming to power in Delhi. The national capital, AAP’s stronghold for the past decade, and the BJP was hopeful that the alleged involvement of the Delhi government’s top functionaries would make room for it to make a dash for power in the elections next year.

One would have to wait and see how the case moves forward and to what extent the excise policy case converts into gains, if any, for the BJP.