Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said he expects a fair investigation into the allegations of assault on AAP MP Swati Maliwal at his residence and added that justice should be done, in his first reaction on the matter.
Maliwal has alleged she was “assaulted” by Kejriwal’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar when she went to meet the chief minister on May 13. The police have registered a case and arrested Kumar.
The chief minister said the matter was “sub judice” and his comment might affect the proceedings. “But I expect there will be a fair investigation. Justice should be served. There are two versions of the event. Police should investigate both versions fairly and justice should be done,” Kejriwal said.
Kumar is in five-day police custody in connection with the case.
Earlier on Wednesday, Maliwal alleged there is a “lot of pressure” on everyone in the party to malign her. “Yesterday I got a call from a big leader of the party. They told me how there is a lot of pressure on everyone, they have to say bad things against Swati, they have to break her by leaking her personal photos. It is being said that anyone who supports her will be expelled from the party,” the Rajya Sabha MP said in a post on X.
“Someone has got the duty of doing press conference and someone has got the duty of tweeting. It is someone’s duty to call the volunteers sitting in America and get something out against me,” she added.
On Tuesday, Kumar was taken to Mumbai for the retrieval of data from his phone, which he had allegedly formatted before his arrest. The police suspect Kumar formatted his phone after transferring its data to some person or device in Mumbai.
Kharge on ‘assault’
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the law must take its course in the alleged assault of Maliwal, as he refused to be drawn into the row over the arrest of Bibhav Kumar.
“I do not want to get into this issue. The law must take its own course. When the law is effective, people will have fear and that is why the law must work. If Modiji also follows the law and rules, people will not indulge in any wrong things,” Kharge said.
‘No PM intention’
Kejriwal on Wednesday said he had no “intention” of becoming Prime Minister if the INDIA bloc wins the Lok Sabha polls, saying his aim was to save the country and democracy from the prevailing “dictatorship”.
“I have no such intention. We (AAP) are a very small party contesting only 22 seats,” he said, adding that he felt the INDIA bloc was gradually inching towards the 300 mark.
