‘Thrilled after his release’: This BJP veteran breaks ranks, supports AAP leader Manish Sisodia

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar has come out in support of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, Manish Sisodia who was granted bail after spending 17 months in jail last week. 

Kumar's comments contradict his party, the BJP, 's stand on targeting AAP leaders, including Manish Sisodia, over the Delhi liquor policy case.

“The readers will be stunned, and many of my friends will be annoyed, but I want to say openly that I am sympathetic to Manish Sisodia, who has been released on bail by the Supreme Court after 17 months. I am thrilled after his release,” Kumar, 89, said in a press release, according to a report in India Today.

Sisodia, former deputy chief minister of Delhi, walked out of Tihar jail on August 9, after 17 months after the Supreme Court granted bail to Sisodia in money laundering cases linked to the Delhi excise policy "scam" case.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan, which reserved the judgment on August 6, disagreed with the findings of the trial court and the High Court that the delay in trial was attributable to Sisodia. The top court said it would be a ‘travesty of justice’ to relegate him to the trial court for seeking bail in these cases.

Kumar said in his statement, as quoted by India Today, that Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP originated after Anna Hazare launched an agitation against corruption, eventually won 67 out of 70 seats in the first election and formed the government with honesty. He said AAP repeated its the government in New Delhi in 2020.

"Repeating the government under the nose of the BJP-led union government proved that the party won voter's trust in New Delhi by doing good work," Shanta Kumar said. AAP and BJP are rivals in Delhi.

A veteran BJP leader, Kumar has been third chief minister of Himachal Pradesh and a Union Minister in the Union. He was elected to the 9th Lok Sabha from Kangra constituency in 1989 and re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1998, 1999 and 2014 from the same constituency.

The AAP said the Supreme Court granting bail to Manish Sisodiais a "tight slap" on the "dictatorship" of the BJP-led Centre but rued that the relief came after a year's delay, and hoped its other jailed leaders, including supremo Arvind Kejriwal, would also get justice.

Sisodia was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 26 last year for purported irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy 2021-22. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is behind bars in the same case.