Hyderabad | Welcoming the bail granted by the Supreme Court to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who was lodged in Tihar jail in the national capital over money laundering allegations, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday said it should have happened sooner.

The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to the Aam Aadmi Party chief till June 1 in the Delhi Excise scam case, so that he can campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Tharoor, in a press conference, attributed political motives to Kejriwal's arrest.

“Is there not a political motive behind it?," he asked, pointing out that the arrest of the current chief minister of Delhi was made soon after the Lok Sabha elections were announced. "And I must say that I am glad that the Supreme Court said that it (bail) would continue until the last voting on 1 June,” the Congress leader added.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP further said that the Congress party had earlier questioned the timing of Kejriwal's arrest and why it was carried out just before the general elections.