In a big breaking, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal withdrew his plea against his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from the Supreme Court, and will contest remand proceedings in a lower court first, as reported by BarandBench.

Kejriwal was arrested by the central agency late on Thursday on charges of corruption in relation to the now-scrapped excise policy. It is the first time in independent India that a serving Chief Minister has been arrested. The move came after Kejriwal skipped multiple summons by the investigation agency, nine in total, calling them “illegal”

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took to streets to protest against the arrest on Friday. Security was stepped up around the city, with heavy personnel deployment and multi-layer barricading on roads leading to BJP headquarters. Delhi Ministers Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj, along with party workers were detained amid the demonstrations, and section 144 was imposed at ITO and around the AAP party office.

Opposition parties across the political spectrum have decried the arrest, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a veiled reference to PM Modi, saying that “a scared dictator wants to create a dead democracy”. AAP Minister Atishi, while hitting out at the BJP-led Central government, said that Kejriwal would continue functioning as the CM from jail.