New Delhi, 23 Feb

The AAP on Friday claimed the CBI is planning to arrest Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the next few days and will serve him a notice by the evening.

While the party did not say in which case Kejriwal is likely to be arrested, it said that this was being done to prevent the AAP from stitching an alliance with the Congress for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as the BJP is scared of the two parties coming together. While there was no immediate response from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the AAP's claims, the BJP said AAP leaders are trying to create confusion and generate sympathy for Kejriwal.

The Congress and the AAP are likely to have a seat-sharing pact in Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana for the Lok Sabha polls and the talks between the two sides are in the final stages, sources said on Thursday.

Delhi cabinet minister and senior AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj said as soon as reports of finalisation of seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the AAP started coming in, the ED sent a seventh summons to Kejriwal in the excise policy case. "We have learnt from reliable sources that the CBI is planning to arrest Kejriwal. The CBI will also serve a notice to Kejriwal either this afternoon or by the evening," Bharadwaj said.

Kejriwal will be arrested in the next two to three days, he said. "We are getting messages that if the AAP-Congress alliance is formed, Arvind Kejriwal will be arrested. The BJP is scared of the AAP-Congress alliance. You can arrest Kejriwal if you want, but the alliance will be forged," he said.

The Enforcement Directorate has issued a fresh summons to Kejriwal asking him to appear before it for questioning in the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case on 26 February, sources said on Thursday.  This is the seventh summons issued by the ED to the chief minister, who skipped the previous six.

AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak said people will take to the streets if Kejriwal is arrested. "There will be a tsunami. Their (BJP) political calculations will go wrong. We are not scared of being arrested. We are forging this alliance for the country," he said.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said Kejriwal knows that the talks on the AAP's alliance with the Congress are failing but AAP leaders have been spreading rumours since Thursday and are trying to generate sympathy for the chief minister. "Kejriwal may delay his punishment with the help of lawyers but ultimately, the people of Delhi will punish him harshly in the coming elections," the BJP leader said.

The AAP and Kejriwal should remember that Congress leader Ajay Maken had submitted the first written complaint to the lieutenant governor regarding the liquor "scam" under his government, Sachdeva said.

The BJP won all the seven seats in Delhi with 51 per cent votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 59 per cent in 2019. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the people of Delhi will give 70 per cent votes to the BJP, he asserted.