Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s shocker of an announcement that he will resign from the post and will occupy the chair only after he proves his honesty in the people’s court, is a strategic move aimed at occupying the moral high ground and turning the upcoming assembly elections in the national capital into a referendum on his credentials as an honest leader.
The Delhi polls are scheduled to be held in February 2025, and Kejriwal has now made it clear that both he and the Aam Aadmi Party are getting into election mode.
It is now clear that for the AAP, the poll campaign will revolve around the theme of the BJP’s alleged persecution of its leaders by foisting ‘false’ cases against them and putting them in jail. It is felt within the party that the allegations of corruption against the AAP leaders, and especially the excise policy case, have somewhat diminished its anti-corruption image. Kejriwal’s resignation, it is hoped, would help him come across as a leader victimised by the BJP-ruled Union government because the saffron party wants to demoralise him and break his party in a bid to win Delhi. The attempt is to occupy the high moral ground and paint the BJP as the villain of the piece.
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The conditions set by the Supreme Court while granting Kejriwal bail in the excise policy case – that he cannot visit the office of the chief minister nor enter the Delhi Secretariat, and he shall not sign official files unless it is required and necessary for obtaining clearance/approval of the Lieutenant Governor – were also a factor in Kejriwal’s decision to step down.
The AAP’s political opponents in the national capital - the BJP and the Congress - were already highlighting the conditions stipulated by the apex court while granting bail to Kejriwal. According to the AAP leaders, it was for a publicly stated purpose that Kejriwal had refused to resign as chief minister while being in jail - that he wanted to thwart the alleged plans of the BJP behind his imprisonment, which was to make him step down and weaken his government.
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Kejriwal had said in his media interactions when he was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections, that if he resigns because he has been jailed, it would provide the BJP with a new tactic to destabilise state governments run by opposition parties.
If Kejriwal were to continue as chief minister in the present circumstances, he would have had to deal with the complications arising out of the conditions set by the Supreme Court and also the constant criticism by his political opponents that his continuance as chief minister was hampering the governance of Delhi.