NEW DELHI – India’s opposition parties slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for arresting a key leader just weeks before India holds a general election, saying the move was a “vindictive misuse of central agencies” and an attempt to stifle them.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21.

He was questioned for more than two hours, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity since the information was not yet public.

Mr Kejriwal was escorted into a courtroom in the capital New Delhi by officers from the ED, India’s main financial crimes agency, to petition for bail while the case proceeds.

His legal team had originally sought to challenge the legality of his detention in the Supreme Court but Mr Shadan Farasat, a lawyer for Mr Kejriwal, told AFP that they would instead contest his remand in a lower court.

Delhi is controlled by Mr Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in India’s federal government system.

Hundreds of supporters from Mr Kejriwal’s AAP took to the streets on March 22 to condemn the leader’s arrest, with police breaking up one crowd of protesters who attempted to block a busy traffic intersection.

Small rallies in support of Mr Kejriwal were held in several other cities around India.

Mr Kejriwal, 55, is a key member of an opposition alliance challenging Mr Modi’s bid for a third straight term in office in a nationwide election that kicks off in April.

Mr Modi, 73, remains a popular leader with voters, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in a strong position to return to power.

The opposition alliance, created in 2023 to mount a united defence against Mr Modi, has been hamstrung by defections, government investigations and a cash crunch.

It says the federal agency’s move against Mr Kejriwal is part of an ongoing campaign to malign and weaken it ahead of the election.

The BJP has refuted any suggestion that it is deliberately targeting opposition leaders and has defended the government’s actions as necessary to root out widespread corruption.

“Our sincere and unsolicited advice to opposition parties who are attacking the BJP is to trust the courts and seek relief from them,” Mr Sambit Patra, the BJP’s national spokesman, told reporters on March 22. “The BJP cannot stop that,” he added.

Financial squeeze

In February, the chief minister from the eastern state of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, was arrested by the ED in a case of alleged land fraud. He remains in prison.

Hours before Mr Kejriwal’s arrest, India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, accused Mr Modi and his government of trying to “cripple” the party financially by freezing its bank accounts.

“The intensity and manner in which these agencies are against key opposition leaders clearly show that there is political intention,” said Dr Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

The ED has been investigating Mr Kejriwal over allegations that his government skewed the state’s alcohol pricing in return for bribes.

Other federal anti-corruption agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation, are also probing the alcohol policy.

Introduced in 2021, the policy was rolled back within months following allegations of wrongdoing. Since then, the ED has arrested two other top AAP leaders. None of those arrested has been convicted.

Mr Kejriwal and his party have denied the allegations.

The AAP had been anticipating Mr Kejriwal’s arrest since the ED sought to question him over the bribery scandal in November.

“One by one, they (BJP) are putting opposition leaders in prison. There will be no one left to fight in the elections,” Mr Kejriwal said in February. “BJP does not win elections. They steal them.”

India’s opposition parties lambasted Mr Kejriwal’s arrest.

“A scared dictator wants to build a dead democracy,” Mr Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader with the Congress party posted on the social media platform X, referring to Mr Modi. Others described Mr Kejriwal’s arrest as a “desperate witch-hunt”.

India’s investigative agencies do not “really have functional autonomy”, said Dr Sahoo.

“We have seen this with past governments as well, and now the BJP has only accelerated the pace. It is actually using them more aggressively,” he added.

Over the decade that the BJP has been in power, the number of registered cases by the federal agencies has risen as conviction rates have plummeted, according to statistics released by the government.

Of the cases filed against politicians for graft and money laundering, 95 per cent target opposition politicians, according to a report by an Indian media house.

“I would say it is not a setback for the opposition,” said Dr Sahoo. “This is an opportunity for the opposition to rally around a popular leader, and this can galvanise” the opposition just a few weeks before the elections. BLOOMBERG, AFP