Swati Maliwal assault case
NEW DELHI, May 19: The BJP on Sunday said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should not indulge in theatrics and instead break his “silence” on the alleged assault on AAP MP Swati Maliwal by his aide Bibhav Kumar.
The reaction came after Kejriwal led a massive Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) protest near the BJP headquarters here against Kumar’s arrest in connection with the incident.
Maliwal has accused Kumar of assaulting her on May 13 when she went to the chief minister’s residence. The AAP has trashed the charge and claimed that Maliwal is acting at the behest of the BJP to frame Kejriwal in a false case.
“Kejriwal should break his silence instead of his ‘dramebazi (theatrics)’ and answer specific questions,” Shehzad Poonawalla, the national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said in a post on X.
He asked Kejriwal if he had ordered the “attack” on Maliwal at the chief minister’s residence and gave patronage to Kumar because he knows his “dark secrets”.
“Why is the CCTV (camera) footage missing? Did Kejriwal help Bibhav to destroy/tamper evidence, including CCTV (camera) footage from Shoshan Mahal (Kejriwal’s residence)? Why release small clips and not full CCTV (camera) footage?” Poonawalla asked.
“Why U turn from what Sanjay Singh said 96 hours ago and why victim-shaming now by AAP?” he asked on the microblogging platform.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, party MP Manoj Tiwari, who is seeking re-election from North East Delhi, alleged that Kejriwal held the protest to protect Kumar.
“Why is Kejriwal not saying anything on the Maliwal case and speaking in favour of Bibhav Kumar, who is accused of beating her up? Why is he trying to save Bibhav Kumar? What is his compulsion? “Protesting in favour of a person who has beaten up a woman. What cheap thinking. Everyone in Delhi is surprised and shocked,” Tiwari said.
He said the people of Delhi want answers to questions on the alleged assault on the former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson and wondered if Kejriwal has come out of prison on interim bail to do such things.
“The Supreme Court did not grant him (regular) bail. It (Supreme Court) wrote on his (Kejriwal) forehead that he is outright corrupt. There is a lot of proof against him. Yet he got 20 days’ time, which is becoming a subject of controversy. Many people are asking why such treatment (was meted out to him),” the BJP leader said.
AAP leaders once sought justice for Nirbhaya, today they are supporting an accused: Maliwal
AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal, who has been accused by her party of being part of a conspiracy to frame Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a false case, on Sunday said her party colleagues once sought justice for Nirbhaya but today they are supporting a person accused of assaulting her.
She said if AAP leader and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who is in jail in connection with the Delhi excise police case, had been here “maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad for me!” Maliwal has alleged that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s aide Bibhav Kumar assaulted her on May 13 when she went to the CM’s residence to meet him. The Aam Aadmi Party has trashed her allegations and claimed Maliwal was acting at the behest of the BJP to frame Kejriwal in a fake case.
Maliwal, who has been associated with the AAP since its inception more than 10 years ago, said on Sunday there was a time when “we all used to come out on the streets to get justice for Nirbhaya”.
“Today, 12 years later, we have come out on the streets to save the accused (Bibhav Kumar) who made the CCTV footage disappear and formatted the phone? I wish they had used this much force for Manish Sisodia ji. Had he been here, maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad for me!” she wrote.Police have arrested Kumar in connection with the case. (PTI)