As Kejriwal becomes first sitting CM to be held, a look at ex-CMs’ arrests: Soren to Jayalalithaa to Lalu

With the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arresting Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal Thursday night in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam, Kejriwal became the first sitting CM to have got arrested by any agency.

The ED’s move came hours after the Delhi High Court refused to grant Kejriwal protection from the central agency’s coercive action.

Here is a look at several instances where former CMs and Union ministers were arrested or convicted over the decades.

On January 31 this year, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) executive president Hemant Soren was forced to step down as the Jharkhand CM just before he was arrested by the ED in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam. He has been in jail since. Following his arrest, the JMM handed over the mantle of the chief ministership to Champai Soren, the party veteran close to Hemant.

The first former CM to have been arrested was then AIADMK chief late J Jayalalithaa in 1996, when the DMK was in power in Tamil Nadu. Jayalalithaa was arrested on December 7, 1996, and sent to prison for a month on charges of corruption in the purchase of TV sets for villagers.

Jayalalithaa also became the first CM to have been convicted in a disproportionate assets case by a Bengaluru court in 2014. She faced disqualification as an MLA, losing the CM’s post following her conviction.

In what was alleged as “political vendetta”, the Tamil Nadu police picked up then DMK chief and ex-CM M Karunanidhi on June 30, 2001, from the house of his wife Rajathi Ammal in Chennai’s Mylapore, when Jayalalithaa was the CM. Murasoli Maran, the nephew of Karunanidhi, reached there and alleged that the DMK chief was beaten up while being taken out of the house.