The government is taking no chances with the protests being led by Arvind Kejriwal demanding the resignation of law minister Salman Khurshid.The 200 strong crowd sits and chants slogans outside the Parliament street police station following his release from police detention on Saturday morning.
He had said a day ago that Parliament Street should become india's Tahrir Square and the protests against corruption should intensify.
He was detained immediately afterwards and today his protests were witnessed just by the TV crews that happened to be there from the beginning. The entry and exit to the protest venue has been almost sealed from the public . The protesters are not even visible a few meters away from the venue, with two buses placed across the road to conceal the goings at the venue. A thick cordon of police men and women form a second wall blocking the entire mouth of the street from both sides leading to the station.
Kejriwal is not concerned or at least doesn't appear to be so. He asks supporters to keep the chanting on and to keep the atmosphere resounding with songs and slogans though his associate Sanjay Singh makes an appeal to the police. He says that while missing funds meant for disabled have been exposed now soon it might be the turn of your uniforms. And when funds go missing we and not the government would be there to take up your cause ....."
Helping himself to biscuits Kejriwal says the protest is not going to continue indefinitely and there was no question of any stand off.
We will continue for a few days and see if the government does anything or not. If they don't they will be exposed to the people of the country.
Asked whether taking up one issue after another would not dilute the impact of his revelations about various personalities he says that it did not matter. "When we took up the case of Robert vadra at least the matter went to the people and the media got the courage to talk about it. That is enough for us" he says.
Asked whether the next person about whom kejriwal planned to make revelations on October 16 was from the opposition party, he said nothing was decided yet.
"We have many choices. We will take a decision on the previous day" He says. There is no air of mystery As he says this rather matter of factly.
" We will go on exposing, for the whole system has to be cleansed " he says.
On Salman Khurshid and the interim draft CAG report which sought recovery of funds from Khurshid's NGO Kejriwal says he based his accusations against the minister on the reports made by Uttar Pradesh government. The officials in the state have said their signatures were forged on approval papers sent to the ministry. We never said anything about the cag report.
Meanwhile Louis khurshid in an interview to an television channel today has denied all allegations of forged signatures to be false. She said she could account for not just Rs 71 lakh rupees received from ministry of social justice but also for an additional six lakh rupees she spent from donated money for distribution of aids for disabled people. The state government has asked for a report from its economic offence department on the issue.