Sisodia says he will become minister only if ‘public approves’

New Delhi
Within hours of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announcing his decision to resign from the post on September 17, his former deputy Manish Sisodia said he will also accept the chair of the deputy chief minister or education minister “if the public approves” and acknowledges his “honesty”.
Sisodia said he joined politics to only work in the education sector, and not for “power and money”.
“I would go to public court along with Arvind Kejriwal and ask whether the public considers him honest or not,” he said.
Praising the Delhi government’s work of the past 10 years in the education sector, Sisodia said that currently, students of government schools in Delhi are “studying brilliantly” and “topping exams like IIT, JEE, and NEET”.
In a note on X, Sisodia said, “I came into politics to work honestly for education. I worked honestly as Delhi’s education minister for 10 years. I built schools. I built new universities. As the Education Minister of Delhi, I worked with the mantra that India cannot become a developed nation without providing the best education in government schools. The result of ten years of hard work is visible that today even in the government schools of Delhi, children are studying brilliantly and topping exams like IIT, JEE, NEET.”
Sisodia, who was also the minister overseeing the excise policy, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2023 for alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped Delhi Excise policy. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested him on March 9, 2023, in a money laundering case stemming from the CBI’s FIR. After being arrested by the CBI, Manish Sisodia resigned from the Delhi cabinet on February 28, 2023. Unlike Kejriwal’s bail conditions, the court refused to accept the ED’s request to restrict him from visiting the secretariat or CM office. Last month on August 9, he walked out of jail after securing bail.
Sisodia, in his note, said attempts were being made to prove him “dishonest” by pinning “false allegations.”
“I worked honestly but attempts were made to prove me dishonest by making false allegations against me under petty politics – I was kept in jail for 17 months on false charges. After two years of legal process, now even the country’s top court has told me to go and do my work. But I will not sit on the chair of Deputy Chief Minister-Education Minister right now,” he said.
Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva said that entire cabinet should resign, AAP should dissolve assembly and hold elections right away. “AAP talks about education but they must explain why their minister turned from education into a liquor trade. One lakh students in Class 9 were failed because results had to be managed in the Class 10 board exams,” he said.