Arvind Kejriwal will be back in Tihar jail on June 2, says Amit Shah

Union home minister Amit Shah

Union home minister Amit Shah has said that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will be back in Tihar jail on June 2 and said that people will see him as the "mastermind of liquor scam" whenever he goes out to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections.

In an interview with The Times of India, Amit Shah was asked whether Kejriwal and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren - both of whom are facing corruption charges - will get sympathy in their respective states due to their arrest.

Shah responded that Kejriwal cannot play the victim card since the court has rejected the Delhi CM's claim that his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was illegal.

"Arvind Kejriwal ji went to SC claiming that his arrest was illegal and he got rebuffed. So, during the course of hearing, he changed tack and sought release on bail only to be turned down by the court yet again. The court gave him interim bail saying you are the president of a party and have a democratic right to campaign but you have to come back to jail on June 2. He has neither been adjudged innocent nor has he been given bail. He will be back in Tihar jail on June 2," Shah told TOI.

Shah added that Kejriwal entered politics to fight against corruption but indulged in graft himself once he became the CM.

"Here is a man who entered politics claiming to be a crusader against corruption, he vowed never to enter politics, but he became CM and then engaged in corruption," Shah said.

Further training his guns on the Delhi CM, Shah said that the man who once said that he would never live in a government accommodation went on to build a "palatial bungalow" — sheesh mahal — out of people’s money.

The Union home minister also rejected opposition allegations of misuse of agencies like CBI and ED, saying that no one has ever been arrested without evidence.

Shah said that he himself was "thrown into jail" on the basis of "fabricated charges".

"Of the 5,155 PMLA cases registered since Modi took over, only 3% involve politicians. Leave that apart. Haven’t courts been approached in the case of each of these investigations? Why have the cases not been tossed out? Now look at my example, I was thrown into jail on the basis of fabricated charges. But I didn’t go around crying that I was a victim of vendetta, it was the court, which not only quashed the case, but also made the observation that the whole case was politically motivated," he said.