AAP Targets Khaira Again, Kejriwal Evades Summons

On 4 Jan, the Punjab and Haryana High Court allowed regular bail to Panjab INC Member of Legislative Assembly, Sukhpal Singh Khaira. On 28 Sep 2023, Khaira was arrested from his bungalow in Chandigarh for a 2015 drugs case. This case was on the basis of a complaint by Kashmir Singh from village Dograwal (SDW Vol. 1 Issue 3, Story 5). As Khaira was being released on 4 Jan, the Kapurthala police booked him in a case of threatening and criminal intimidation. This new case was based on a complaint by Ranjit Kaur, wife of Kashmir Singh. While piling cases on Khaira, AAP supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is himself evading repeated summons by the Enforcement Directorate in connection to the excise police case under which his deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, is already in jail. The Enforcement Directorate had earlier summoned Kejriwal on 2 Nov and 21 Dec 2023 and now summoned him on 3 Jan. This time Kejriwal did not receive the summon and instead went for a ten-day meditation retreat to Hoshiarpur and AAP is engaged in propagating that if Kejriwal appears he will be arrested. This week, Panjab CM Mann followed suit and proceeded on a four-day meditation course at Visakhapatnam. Meanwhile, on 22 Dec, a local court in Sangrur sentenced Panjab Cabinet Minister Aman Arora to two years rigorous imprisonment in a family dispute case. While Arora says he will approach a higher court, he continues to be a minister. AAP needs to realize when elected representatives, guardians of law, themselves evade summons by statutory bodies, what is the message they are sending to ordinary citizens.