New Delhi, May 16: The Delhi Police recorded the statement of AAP MP Swati Maliwal on Thursday in connection with the alleged assault on her by an aide of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, even as the BJP hit out at the AAP supremo for maintaining silence over the incident.
Bibhav Kumar, the personal assistant of Kejriwal, has also been summoned by the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Friday over the matter.
Maliwal’s statement was recorded by a two-member team, led by Additional Commissioner of Police P S Kushwaha. It was at the Rajya Sabha member’s residence in Central Delhi for nearly four and a half hours.
Police are now likely to register an FIR, sources said.
Later in a post on X, Maliwal said she has recorded her statement with the Delhi Police on what happened with her and urged the BJP to not indulge in politics.
“Hope appropriate action is taken. Whatever happened with me was extremely bad,” said the MP, two days after she went to the Civil Lines police station and alleged that a member of Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Kejriwal’s personal staff “assaulted” her at the CM’s official residence.
She also said, “The past days have been very difficult for me. I thank those who prayed. Those who tried to indulge in character assassination, said that I was doing it at the behest of the other party, God bless them too.”
The BJP attacked Kejriwal after he refused to comment on the Maliwal “assault” matter during a press conference in Lucknow. He was flanked by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.
Kejriwal avoided a question on the issue and it was fielded by Singh who said his party has already made its stand clear on the issue.
On Tuesday, at a press conference in Delhi, Singh had accepted that Kumar had “misbehaved” with Maliwal.
When Kejriwal was avoiding the question, Yadav took the microphone and said, “There are more important things than that”.
He then unfolded a piece of paper and said, “BJP people are not with anyone, it is a ‘gang’ that lodges false cases”.
Singh then took the microphone from the SP chief, and said the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should answer for atrocities against women during the party’s rule.
BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia claimed that Kejriwal is the main “criminal” in the complaint that his aide Kumar had physically attacked Maliwal at the chief minister’s residence, as he cited the telephone call she had made to the Delhi Police to report the matter.
“His (Kejriwal) silence speaks a lot. Out of jail, he is more a ‘goonda’ than a chief minister,” he told reporters, noting that Kumar was seen with the chief minister in Lucknow. Stringent action should be taken against the accused in the case.
Kumar, he noted, was photographed with Kejriwal during his visit to Lucknow.
