Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday in Haryana announced that he will resign after two days and wont sit on the CM's chair until people give him 'certificate of honesty', he said, "want to give 'agnipariksha' after coming out of jail".
"I will become chief minister, Sisodia deputy CM only when people say we are honest," he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) described the AAP supremo's move as "PR stunt" and a "confession of crime" and wondered whether he has offered to quit because of infighting within his party.
Kejriwal stated that he would hold a meeting of AAP MLAs in the next couple of days and mentioned that an AAP leader would take over as Chief Minister.
Urging the Delhi elections be held sooner than the assumed time frame of 2025, Kejriwal said, "Delhi elections due in February but I demand elections in national capital be held in November with Maharashtra."
He jumped into business a day after being released from Tihar Jail as he held a meeting of AAP leaders regarding the October 5 Haryana Assembly polls.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to go solo in the polls after its alliance talks with the Congress failed.
Kejriwal was criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders for not resigning from his post as CM after he was arrested. Kejriwal was the first sitting CM in India who got arrested and served his time in jail.
In his defence, Kejriwal addressed the criticism and said, "I didn't resign (after arrest) because I respect democracy; Constitution supreme for me."
Further attacking BJP he said, "They slap false cases against non-BJP CMs, only AAP can stand up to their conspiracies; if held, urge such CMs not to resign."
BJP Calls It 'PR Stunt'
Slamming Kejriwal, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, "The AAP national convenor's announcement is a part of his plan to make his wife Sunita Kejriwal the chief minister.... Arvind Kejriwal has done a PhD in how to make a virtue out of necessity."
"The emotional and PR cards that he is playing are aimed at creating a Manmohan Singh-like system in Delhi as (former Congress president) Sonia Gandhi did," he added.
Addressing a press conference, another BJP national spokesperson, Sudhanshu Trivedi, said Kejriwal's announcement that he would step down as the chief minister was a confession of his crime. He accepted that the charges that have been levelled against him are such that he cannot continue on the top post, Trivedi said.
