In a shocking announcement, Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday that he will step down as Delhi Chief Minister in the next two or three days, days after walking out of Tihar Jail in an alleged money laundering case linked to the liquor policy scam.

“I am going to resign from the CM position after two days,” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor said while addressing the party workers in Delhi.  

Kejriwal added that he will not sit on the CM chair until the people give their verdict, and he will go to every house and street and not sit on the CM chair till he gets a verdict from the people. The Assembly election to Delhi is due early next year.

Attacking the BJP government, Kejriwal said, “They sent me to jail because their goal was to break the AAP and the courage of Kejriwal. They thought they would break our party and form a government in Delhi after jailing me. But our party did not break.”

“I did not resign from the jail because I wanted to protect the Constitution of India. I wanted to fail their formula. The Supreme Court asked the central government why a government cannot run from jail. The SC proved that a government can run from jail,” he added.

While addressing the gathering, Kejriwal appealed to the people of Delhi to cast their vote in his favour if they feel that Kejriwal is an honest leader in the coming Assembly elections.

“If you think I am honest, vote for me in large numbers. I will sit on the CM’s chair only after being elected,” he said. The elections are supposed to be held in February, he added.

Kejriwal demanded elections be held in November with Maharashtra elections. Till elections are held, someone else from the party will be the Chief Minister, the AAP chief said.

In the next 2-3 days, a meeting of the MLAs will be held, where the next CM will be decided, Kejriwal asserted.

Senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia, addressing the workers and MLAs at the party office in Delhi before Kejriwal’s resignation announcement, said the BJP drafted a fantasy story named the ‘Liquor Scam’. The Supreme Court gave bail to Arvind Kejriwal and ended that story, he added.

“It is a happy ending for us and a sad ending for the BJP. They thought they would keep Arvind Kejriwal jailed till the Delhi elections but their stories were proven to be wrong in the court, and today Arvind Kejriwal and I are out of jail,” Sisodia said.

AAP MP Raghav Chadha said Kejriwal had asked for votes in the name of work in 2020 and said that if “I have worked then vote for me, if I have not worked then do not vote for me.”

The people of Delhi will declare the Chief Minister honest by voting for AAP and in the upcoming 2025 Delhi elections, the people of Delhi will declare their Chief Minister honest through that election, Chadha added.

The death toll in the collapse of a three-storey house in Zakir Nagar here has risen to 10 while the rescue work at the site is still underway, the district administration said on Sunday.

The administration stated that one person is feared to be still trapped under the debris.

Those who have been identified as deceased include: Sajid (40), Saniya (15), Saqib (11), Simra (one-and-half years), Reeza (7), Naffo (63), Farhana (20), Alisa (18), Aliya (6), and Rimsa (5 months). The administration stated that Sofiyan (6) is in stable condition.

Among the injured, Naeem (22), Nadeem (26), Saqib (20), and Saina (38) are receiving treatment at the Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College.

The collapse of a three-storey house on Saturday afternoon trapped 15 people under the debris.

Meerut District Magistrate Deepak Meena told reporters, “When the rescue operation started, the relatives gave information about 15 persons. Three managed to escape when the building was collapsing.”

Meena added, “The death toll currently stands at 10, while five persons are alive. The rescue operations will continue until all the debris is removed.” He mentioned, “The bodies have been kept at the medical college for a post-mortem examination.”

Senior officials, including Meerut Zone Additional Director General of Police D K Thakur, Divisional Commissioner Selva Kumari J, Inspector General of Police Nachiketa Jha, and Senior Superintendent of Police Vipin Tada, arrived at the scene to monitor the rescue operation.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), fire brigade, and police teams are all involved in the rescue operation.

The Congress Saturday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his statehood to Union Territory only by saffron party possible remarks saying the region has become a bureaucratic fiefdom controlled by the BJP-RSS cabal.

The Grand old party asked when will full statehood return to Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi addressed an election rally in the Doda district of Jammu region in support of BJP candidates and said only his government will grant statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh noted that since the fall of the PDP-BJP government in 2018, Jammu and Kashmir has been administered by Modi government.

In a series of questions to the Prime Minister,  Ramesh asked, “Why has Modi’s government failed to salvage the security situation in J&K and what is his vision to restore normalcy.”

 “Why is the central government consistently lying to the country about the security situation in J&K?” Ramesh said in a post on X.

The Congress leader further asked why has there been a sharp increase in narcotics smuggling under the Union government’s administration.

Ramesh said one fundamental reason for the upsurge in terrorist activity, particularly in Jammu, is the sharp rise in naroctics smuggling over the last few years with the International Border in Jammu rather than the LoC in Kashmir, being the primary area of operation for the smugglers.

He alleged that since 2018, the people of J&K have been denied any avenue to express their grievances.

“The region has become a bureaucratic fiefdom controlled by the BJP-RSS cabal. While claiming to have ended special status for J&K, the government has in fact created an extra-special situation of a new and unique political system: one where the state has been downgraded to a UT, elections have been suspended, and all norms of constitutional morality violated,” he alleged.

In his speech in Parliament on December 11, 2023, Home Minister Amit Shah stated that full statehood to J&K would be restored at an “appropriate time”, Ramesh pointed out.

“Five years after being stripped of their statehood, the people of J&K still lack clarity on what the timeline for this return of statehood is. Based on the experience of the last five years, where the Assembly elections were delayed on one pretext or the other, the people of J&K don’t buy the center’s assurance of restoration of statehood,” he said.

Can the Prime Minister give a straight answer to this key question as to when will full statehood return to Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress leader asked.

He further asked who will take moral responsibility for the loss of two Indian Army personnel to terrorist attacks in Kishtwar on Friday.

“One of the most repeated talking points of the non-biological PM is that the Government’s abrogation of Article 370 has curbed terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. The mood on the ground in J&K, however, is one of anxiety. At least fifty-three security personnel have been killed to the south of Pir Panjal since 2021, in an area where there were no major incidents of terrorism between 2007 and 2014,” he said.

“In the last few months, it has spread even to neighboring districts that we considered largely peaceful: as evinced by the attack in Reasi on the 9th of June, the attack in Kathua on the 10th of June, in Doda on the 11th of June, in Udhampur on the 19th of August, and in Kishtwar on 13th of September. Infiltration from Pakistan is rising along the International Border, and a palpable sense of insecurity prevails across J&K,” Ramesh said.