'Complete insult to judiciary': Sitharaman on Kejriwal's appeal to voters

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in an interview with CNN-News18 hit out against Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. In the interview, Sitharaman said that Kejriwal was playing “ruthless dirty politics" and is “grossly insulting the courts" with his statements made during the election campaign.

Sitharaman told CNN-News18, “by repeatedly saying and appealing to people that if you press AAP symbol, I will not need to go to jail — is he trying to say that the courts are doing politics or courts are going by basis of votes which are coming?" The minister further added that,“he is politicising the whole legal process…if he thinks this is going to benefit him, he is being very short-sighted. What he is saying is a complete insult to the judiciary," Sitharaman said.

The minister, during the interview, said that Kejriwal was building a false narrative and that he does not believe in the intelligence of the common people or he believes in manipulating them.

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“Now, they (BJP) are saying I will have to go jail again. It is in your hands whether I go to jail. If you choose lotus (the BJP’s symbol), I will have to return to jail. If you choose INDIA bloc candidate, I won’t have to go to jail,” the AAP national convener earlier said. “When you go to vote, you have to think whether Kejriwal should go to jail. ‘Jo kare Kejriwal ko pyaar woh kare Modi ko inkaar,” he said.

The AAP convener is out on an interim bail till June 1 following an order of the Supreme Court, which has directed him to surrender on June 2. He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in March in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. Arvind Kejriwal, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi liquor policy case, was released from Tihar Jail on interim bail granted by the Supreme Court.