New Delhi’s chief minister announces resignation two days after he was released on bail

One of India’s main opposition figures and New Delhi’s chief minister said he would resign from office yesterday, two days after he was granted bail in a bribery case.

Arvind Kejriwal, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was arrested nearly six months ago ahead of national elections on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. India’s top court released him on bail Friday.

Kejriwal has consistently denied the accusations and called them a political conspiracy.

“Today I have come to ask the public whether you consider Kejriwal honest or a criminal,” he said in a public address Sunday at the headquarters of his Aam Aadmi Party, which governs New Delhi. “I will resign from the post of chief minister two days from today.”

Kejriwal said his party — a part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA and was the main challenger to Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in June’s elections — will hold a meeting later to decide who will take over his position.

He also demanded the New Delhi elections, scheduled for February next year, be held in November instead.

Opposition parties widely condemned Kejriwal’s arrest. They accused Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken its political opponents. They pointed to several raids, arrests, and corruption investigations of key opposition figures in the months before the elections. MDT/AP