Is Arvind Kejriwal First Serving Chief Minister To Be Arrested?

With the Enforcement Directorate taking him into custody on Thursday, Arvind Kejriwal has become the first serving Chief Minister to be arrested. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief is the third senior leader from the party to be arrested in connection with the Delhi liquor policy scam, leaving question marks about the future of his party, which has insisted that he will continue to run the government from behind bars.

Mr Kejriwal was taken into custody hours after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from arrest in the liquor policy case. He has skipped nine summons issued by the ED, the last of which required his presence for questioning on Thursday.

When the same agency had arrested then Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in connection with the money laundering case linked to an alleged Rs 600-crore land scam on January 31, the JMM leader had refused to sign the arrest memo until he tendered his resignation to the Governor.

When he was being taken away after being questioned for over six hours at his residence in Ranchi, Mr Soren had insisted on stopping at the Raj Bhavan, where he handed his resignation to Governor CP Radhakrishnan. This ensured that he was a former chief minister, even if by a whisker, before his actual arrest.

Some of the other former chief ministers in the country who have been spent time behind bars include RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, late J Jayalalithaa of the AIADMK, Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP and Om Prakash Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal.