Kejriwal, ministers sit on dharna

• Demands action against three Delhi Police officers for not obeying its orders
• If any Constitutional crisis is created, Centre alone will be held responsible for it: CM
• Dharna place may create crisis as Republic Day Parade will be staged on January 26
• Scuffle brakes out with Delhi Police, in which AAP MLA Akhilesh gets injured

New Delhi: A strange situation has arisen in the capital, as Aam Aadmi Party supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with his ministers on Monday sat down on dharna in front of Rail Bhavan, demanding action against three Delhi Police officers for not obeying the orders of two Delhi Ministers. This could create a crisis, as it is close to the Raisina Hill where Republic Day Parade is staged on January 26.

Kejriwal said if any Constitutional crisis is created, the Centre alone would be held responsible for it. He even expressed his readiness to sit there on dharna for the next 10 days, and started clearing files sitting on Delhi streets.

The Centre is in a dilemma as to how to deal with the situation. All the entry points to the Rail Bhavan area have been barricaded, besides calling in the Rapid Action Force (RAF). Three DTC buses were also brought to take the protesters into detention. So far, however, there are no immediate plans to remove Kejriwal from the protest venue. A minor scuffle broke out with the Delhi Police, in which AAP MLA Akhilesh Mani Tripathi was injured and shifted to RML Hospital.

As Central Delhi was the under siege of the AAP supporters, Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari was forced to walk down to his office in the Shastri Bhawan in the area.

Setting his sights on winning the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Kejriwal is determined to keep up the momentum, by keeping the political pot boiling. He is keen to lay the blame for the growing crimes against women in the capital at the doorstep of the Central government and also the Delhi Police, which is not under the control of the Delhi Government.

In view of the tight security for the Republic Day Parade, prohibitory orders were imposed in the area under Section 144. Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde asked Kejriwal to move to Jantar Mantar for the dharna. Shinde said Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung and Delhi Police Commissioner are the ones, who deal with the law and order in Delhi. Already judicial inquiry has been ordered and the outcome should be awaited.

Kejriwal upped the ante and rejected Shinde’s request and asked why Shinde was not acting against the cops. He invoked former Union Home Minister R K Singh’s charge that Home Minister Shinde sent chits to the Delhi Police Commissioner for the postings of Station House Officers (SHOs). That was why Shinde was hesitant to act against them, he said. In an impromptu address to the gathering, Kejriwal said, “Some say I am an anarchist, yes I am. There is lawlessness in every home in the city. Today I will spread disorder in the Home Minister's house.”

Kejriwal appealed to the people to come and join him for this protest. This marked a change in the stand he took in a tweet on Sunday, in which he urged the people not to join him in his demonstration as it would interfere with arrangements being made for Republic Day. Kejriwal said he did not want to hinder preparations for the Republic Day Parade on January 26, but wondered what kind of a Republic was this where even the women are not safe. The trigger for Kejriwal’s protest is the demand for action against three Delhi Police officers, who refused to make a series of arrests asked by two Delhi Ministers, Somnath Bharti and Rakhi Birla. “I ask the cops also to quit the police force and join the Aam Aadmi Party,” Kejriwal said.

Somnath Bharti had conducted a midnight raid in Khirki area of Malviya Nagar in South Delhi last week, and asked the Delhi Police to arrest Nigerian and Ugandan women, alleging sex-racket and drugs racket. The police refused, saying they had no warrant. The African women had since filed a police complaint that they were beaten up by a mob and forced to submit urine samples for drug-testing at Delhi's AIIMS. Another Delhi Minister Rakhi Birla accused the police of ignoring her orders to punish a family responsible for a dowry-related death.