If INDIA Bloc Wins On June 4, I'll Be Back Next Day: Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday claimed he will be back from the Tihar jail on June 5 if the INDIA bloc comes to power after the election results are announced even as he alleged that efforts were made to break and humiliate him during his prison stay.

Arrested in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, Mr Kejriwal has been granted interim bail by the Supreme Court till June 1 to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections. He will have to surrender and go back to jail on June 2.

June 1 is the last day of the seven-phase elections and the votes will be counted on June 4.

Addressing his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors, Mr Kejriwal said he was under CCTV surveillance and 13 officers were monitoring the feed.

Talking about the election campaigning of the INDIA bloc, he said for the past few days, he has received plenty of invitations from various parties and candidates of the opposition bloc from all over the country.

"I will try and go to most of the places in the next 21 days to campaign for the INDIA bloc. I have been receiving invitations from individual candidates as well, from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and so on," he said.

Asking them to work hard, he said, "I have to go back to jail on 2nd June. I will be watching the results on June 4 from the jail. If you work hard and make the INDIA bloc win, I will come back on June 5. If there is any lack of effort, then let's see when we will meet," he said.

Mr Kejriwal said when he was arrested, he was feeling that he would have to stay in jail for six to seven months.

"I was mentally prepared for that. I did not expect that I would come back in the middle. Miracle happened. The judgment given by the Supreme Court on Friday seems as if God has performed a miracle," he said.

The Delhi chief minister, sharing the ordeal of his days in jail, said two CCTV cameras were installed in his cell, "to see what time I wake up, what time I go to bed, what time I eat food, which TV channels I watch, what time I wake up at night and what time I go to the bathroom".

"These recordings were played in the offices of the 13 officers. These people were continuously monitoring each and everything that I was doing.

"We have also learnt that the jail authority had also given a feed of the same to the Prime Minister's Office. Modi ji was monitoring the CCTV camera to keep an eye on my activities. Why? Because he wanted to know if Kejriwal was broken," he claimed.

He asserted that he has the blessings of Lord Hanuman with him and he is not going to break like this.

"I do not know what hatred Modi has harboured against me and the Aam Aadmi Party that he is hell-bent on crushing the Aam Aadmi Party. But Narendra Modi is no God, and God is with us in this fight," he stressed.

He alleged that he was not given insulin for 15 days.

"I have been suffering from diabetes for 20 years and have been on insulin for 10 years. I have very high sugar levels, and I take 52 units of insulin daily, which is a lot," he said.

He recalled that when he went to the jail, his sugar level was increasing daily.

"It was then that I started getting worried because if the sugar level remains this high for a long time, then it gradually starts affecting your organs like kidneys and liver, and it can lead to permanent damage. I used to keep requesting the doctors to give me insulin, but they kept delaying," he charged.

The AAP supremo alleged that the jail authority had once cancelled the meeting with his wife Sunita.

"It is the right of the prisoners to meet their families. Whoever is a prisoner, be it a terrorist, be it a rapist, be it a murderer, they are allowed to meet their family members twice a week.

"One day, the jail authority cancelled the meeting with my wife... Only after there was an uproar about this matter that these people wrote another mail to my wife at 11 am saying that you can have the meeting," he said.

Exhorting the councillors of his party in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to work harder in their wards, he said the people "love and respect us only because of our work".

He claimed the BJP tried to poach the party councillors but they stood strong.

Mr Kejriwal said till three months ago, it seemed that the BJP would have more than 400 seats.

"Suddenly many big incidents happened in the last three months. Today, the people in the country are not betting whether they (BJP) will get over 400 seats. The bet is that whether they will get 250 seats or not. What is this? This is a miracle. This is God's grace," he said.