Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Shanta Kumar has come out in support of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia, who was granted bail last week after spending 17 months in jail.
Kumar’s comments are in contrast to the stand taken by his party BJP, which has targeted AAP leaders, including Manish Sisodia, over the Delhi liquor policy issue.
According to an India Today report, 89-year-old Kumar said in a press release, “Readers will be stunned and many of my friends will be angry, but I want to say openly that I sympathise with Manish Sisodia, who has been released on bail by the Supreme Court after 17 months. I am thrilled at his release.”
Sisodia, the former deputy chief minister of Delhi, walked out of Tihar jail on August 9 after 17 months. Sisodia was granted bail by the Supreme Court in money laundering cases linked to the Delhi excise policy “scam”.
While reserving the verdict on August 6, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Vishwanathan disagreed with the findings of the trial court and the high court that the delay in the trial was caused by Sisodia. The apex court said that sending him to the lower court to seek bail in these cases would be a “travesty of justice”.
In his statement, Kumar was quoted by India Today as saying that the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP was started after Anna Hazare launched a movement against corruption, which eventually won 67 out of 70 seats in the first election and formed the government honestly. He said that the AAP repeated its government in New Delhi in 2020.
Shanta Kumar said, “Forming the government again under the nose of the BJP-led central government proves that the party has won the confidence of the voters in New Delhi by doing good work.” AAP and BJP are rivals in Delhi.
Kumar, a senior BJP leader, has been the third Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh and a Union Minister at the Centre. He was elected to the 9th Lok Sabha from the Kangra constituency in 1989 and was re-elected to the Lok Sabha from the same constituency in 1998, 1999 and 2014.
AAP said that the Supreme Court’s grant of bail to Manish Sisodia is a big slap on the dictatorship of the BJP-led Centre, but regretted that this relief has come after a delay of one year. The party expressed hope that its other leaders in jail, including supremo Arvind Kejriwal, will also get justice.
Sisodia was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 26 last year for alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is in jail in the same case.
