Chandigarh: 'Punjab Ministers, MLAs stopped from entering Delhi'

Chandigarh : Several AAP leaders, including Punjab ministers and MLAs, Sunday alleged they were stopped from entering Delhi, as the party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal appeared before the CBI for questioning in the excise policy case.

The party's leaders from Punjab were headed for Delhi in a show of support to Chief Minister Kejriwal, who was summoned by the federal agency to its office in the national capital in connection with irregularities in formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped excise policy.

The ruling party in Punjab claimed that ministers Bram Shanker Jimpa, Dr Balbir Singh and Harjot Singh Bains, and MLAs Dinesh Chadha and Kuljit Randhawa were among those stopped at the Singhu border and not allowed to enter Delhi. "We cannot even enter our capital? @DelhiPolice not allowing my car to enter Delhi," Punjab Education Minister Harjot Bains said in a tweet. Balbir Singh, the health minister of Punjab, charged democracy was being "murdered" in the country.

"The Constitution and the Supreme Court give us the right to move freely in our country & to protest peacefully. Neither is being allowed. Many of my cabinet colleagues, MLAs & volunteers have been illegally detained at badli. Shame," he tweeted. "Cabinet Minister @BJimpaAAP MLA @dineshchadha3 MLA @MGiaspura KuljitRandhawaa detained by police while protesting against the Centre's misuse of CBI to muzzle the voice of AAP convenor & Delhi CM," AAP said in a tweet.

The Aam Aadmi Party held a protest here on Sunday . The protest was held at the Bhandari bridge and it was joined by state ministers including Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, Inderbir Singh Nijjar, MLAs Jeevan Jyot Kaur, Ajay Gupta and Jasbir Singh Sandhu along with their supporters. Carrying placards, the protesters shouted slogans against the Centre. They accused the Union government of misusing central investigating agencies CBI and ED against political opponents. Kejriwal was summoned as a witness and is not an accused in the excise policy case in which his former deputy Manish Sisodia was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 26.