PM trying to crush AAP as it has a strong future: Kejriwal

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal marked his return from jail a day earlier with a public event on Saturday in the heart of the Capital, and used the platform to launch an attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, he alleged, was on a “one nation, one leader” mission to impose “dictatorship” by putting all opposition leaders behind bars and ending “political careers of BJP leaders”.

A day after walking out of Tihar jail on interim bail of 21 days, Kejriwal renewed his campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls with a visit to the Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place, followed by an event at the Aam Aadmi Party headquarters at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, and ended the day with two massive roadshows.

Modi, Kejriwal said, believes that the AAP will “offer a future to the country”, and has thus left “no stone unturned” in crushing the party.

“AAP is a very small party but despite that, the PM left no stone unturned in crushing it. They sent four top leaders to jail at the same time. If four top leaders of big parties go to jail, the party ends. They thought that with four top leaders inside jail, AAP would be crushed. But the more they try to crush it, the more it grows,” he said, adding that no other party or its leaders were harassed the way “Modi has harassed AAP”.

Also read: ‘I didn’t resign from Delhi CM post because…': Arvind Kejriwal's top quotes

The AAP’s most famous faces — Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Satyendra Jain — were incarcerated by central agencies over corruption charges in separate cases.

While the Supreme Court granted interim bail to the Delhi chief minister in a money laundering case linked the alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped excise policy case to enable him to campaign for the general elections, Singh was released from jail on regular bail on April 4.

Sisodia, once Kejriwal’s deputy in the Delhi government, has been in jail since February 2023. Jain is currently in jail in a separate money laundering case

“Modi says he is fighting corruption, but he has welcomed the most corrupt people, including those who Modi alleged of having done ₹70,000 crore in corruption. If Modi wants to fight corruption, he should learn from Kejriwal. In 2015, I sacked my minister who demanded ₹5 lakh bribe from someone and sent him to jail...,” said Kejriwal.

Kejriwal went on to detail what he said a “dangerous mission” started by PM Modi.

“The people of the country need to understand this. Modi has started a very dangerous mission — ‘one nation one leader’. Modi wants to crush all the politicians of the country,” he said.

“Modi is running this mission in two stages. In the first stage, he will send all opposition leaders to jail and will also end the political career of all BJP leaders. They have sent Manish Sisodia, Hemant Soren, ministers of Mamata Banerjee to jail… if they win the Lok Sabha election, after some time (opposition leaders) Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin, Tejashwi Yadav, Pinarayi Vijayan, Uddhav Thackeray and other opposition leaders will be sent to jail,” the Delhi chief minister said.

“They finished the political career of LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sumitra Mahajan… Shivraj Singh Chouhan who won the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, was not made the chief minister (of Madhya Pradesh) and (they) finished his career. Vasundhra Raje, ML Khattar, Raman Singh... Who is next? Yogi Adityanath? If they (BJP) win the election, they will change the CM of Uttar Pradesh in two months. They will finish the political career of Yogi Adityanath,” Kejriwal alleged.

“This is dictatorship,” he added.

Kejriwal said that in India’s 4,000-year history “when dictators tried to usurp power, the people crushed them”.

“One dictator wants to finish democracy in this country. I am fighting against this dictator with all my strength. I cannot do it alone. I am begging the support of 140 crore people of the country. I am begging you to save the country from this dictatorship,” he said.

The AAP leader took on what is often posed as a political pitch by the BJP to portray Modi as the only viable PM candidate, and said: “They (BJP) ask the INDIA alliance who will be our PM. I want to ask the BJP, who will be their PM? Narendra Modi is turning 75 years old on September 17, 2025. In 2014, Modi had made a rule that those turning 75 in BJP will be retired… (LK) Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi… have been retired. Now Modi is going to retire next year. So, who will become the PM of the BJP?”

Modi, Kejriwal said, is asking for votes for Union home minister Amit Shah, claiming that the latter will be Modi’s successor after he “retires” on turning 75. “Modi is not seeking votes for himself, he is seeking votes to make Amit Shah as the PM. Who will fulfil the guarantee of Modi?” Kejriwal said.

BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi took a swipe at Kejriwal, saying his remarks about Shah are an acknowledgement that the BJP is set to retain power for a third straight term.

The BJP will not win more than 230 Lok Sabha seats, Kejriwal asserted.

“In the last 20 hours after release from jail, I talked to poll experts and people, and got to know the BJP is not going to form the government,” he said, adding that it will be the INDIA alliance of opposition parties that will have enough support to come to power.

“AAP will be a part of the central government and we will get Delhi the status of a full-state. Delhi’s LG will be the LG of the people,” he added.

Ahead of restarting his election campaign, Kejriwal, along with his wife Sunita and Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann, offered prayers at the Hanuman temple in central Delhi’s Connaught Place.

He began his address in the afternoon by thanking the Supreme Court for granting him bail after 40 days behind bars, and another ten days in custody of the Enforcement Directorate as part of questioning in the alleged irregularities in the 2021 Delhi excise policy.

“I want to thank the Supreme Court for giving me 21 days. I will work 36 hours a day. I will visit different parts of the country to save democracy and stop this dictatorship. Every drop of my blood is for the country,” the AAP convener said.

He thanked the people gathered at the party office despite the summer heat. “After 50 days I have come amid you. It feels good. We visited the Hanuman Mandir and took blessings of the deities. Due to the blessings of Hanuman ji, I have suddenly come out and I am standing among you,” Kejriwal said.

Talking about why he did not resign from his post, Kejriwal said: “The chief minister’s post is not important for me. I did not step down as the chief minister because a conspiracy was hatched to force me to resign on a fake case.”

Kejriwal said former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren should not have resigned from his post, and should have run the government from jail after he was arrested. “It becomes very convenient for them if we resign. They will put the chief minister of a state where they lose the election in jail and topple the government.”

Later in the day, Kejriwal held his first roadshow for Lok Sabha election campaign along with Mann in the South Delhi constituency. He also held his second roadshow in East Delhi’s Krishna Nagar. The AAP is fighting the Delhi elections as an INDIA constituent, with its leaders contesting four of seven parliamentary seats in the city, and the remaining being contested by ally Congress.

The first campaign started in Mehrauli where Kejriwal held an over 45-minutes-long roadshow seeking votes for AAP candidate Sahiram Pahalwan. The second roadshow was held in East Delhi’s Krishna Nagar where the two CMs sought votes for AAP’s candidate from East Delhi Lok Sabha seat Kuldeep Kumar.