Arvind Kejriwal, Hemant Soren in jail, wives lead attack on BJP at rally

RANCHI: Two empty chairs for jailed Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren headlined INDIA bloc’s bid to turn the tables on BJP at a joint rally here today as the Delhi chief minister’s wife Sunita Kejriwal led the offensive by accusing the Narendra Modi govt of conspiring to kill her diabetic husband in Tihar jail by denying him insulin.
“Their politics is very dirty.Now there is a camera fixed on his food, each morsel of food is being monitored, what a shame it is. He is diabetic and has been administered 50 units of insulin for the past 12 years now. But inside the jail, he is not given any. They want to kill him,” Sunita alleged at the Ulgulan Nyay Rally here.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Kejriwal’s AAP colleague and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav were among those attended the event.
Message from Ranchi rally: Tactics like putting Kejriwal, Soren in jail won’t intimidate opposition
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav were among those attended the event and declared that the ongoing general election was a fight to “save the Constitution and democracy”. The chorus was that the opposition bloc would not be intimidated by arm-twisting tactics like putting Kejriwal and former Jharkhand CM Hemant behind bars. Congress’s Rahul Gandhi could not make it to the event, citing illness.
Other than the two empty chairs, two giant banners showing Hemant and Kejriwal behind bars were placed at the rally on Ranchi’s Prabhat Tara ground. That was to send the message that both will return soon. Kejriwal has been held in an ED case related to Delhi’s liquor policy and Hemant in an alleged Ranchi land scam.
“Court has not yet found Kejriwal and Hemant guilty, yet Modi ji has put them in jail. Kejriwal has been a diabetes patient for 20 years and has been taking 50 units of insulin daily for about 12 years,” Sunita said, iterating charges about a plot to kill her husband.
Sunita questioned the ED probe. “What kind of investigation is this where you put innocent people in jail without proving guilt? This is dictatorship. What is my husband’s fault? He improved govt schools in Delhi, provided good education, built hospitals and mohalla clinics,” Sunita said. Her AAP colleague Sanjay Singh declared that “these empty chairs won’t be so after poll results on June 4”.
Hemant’s wife Kalpana read out a message penned by her husband from jail. “BJP had been hatching conspiracies against me for four years and put me in jail over a baseless case. In the same fashion, they put Delhi CM behind bars. This is the first time since independence when opposition leaders are being jailed in a well-planned manner before a Lok Sabha election,” Hemant said.
Congress chief Kharge claimed Hemant, a tribal, had paid the price for being a part of INDIA bloc.