The Aam Aadmi Party has for days been battling a controversy after its Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal alleged that she was assaulted by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s personal assistant, Bibhav Kumar, at the CM’s residence on May 13. The AAP leader said Kumar had kicked her in the chest, stomach, and pelvic area and had brutally “dragged her and pulled her shirt up”. Now, in an exclusive conversation with CNN-News18’s Zakka Jacob, Maliwal has expressed disappointment at the chief minister’s response.
“I am very hurt by how Kejriwal is behaving. I have been working with them since 2006. I was being beaten in his drawing room. I was screaming. Kejriwal was at home, but nobody came for my help,” she said in the interview on Saturday. “Then while the party came to attack me, they victim-shamed me, they did press conferences, Arvind ji was seen with him (Bibhav), they did protest for him, they made him a hero and me a villain. My friends in the party were threatened not to stand with me. And now finally the CM is saying there are two versions and an unbiased investigation should be done.”
Kejriwal said this week he expects that a fair investigation will be conducted and justice will be done but added that there are two versions of the event. Bibhav Kumar was remanded in judicial custody for four days by a Delhi court on Friday.
“He is in a position of power. After so much intimidation, how can we think that the investigation will be unbiased?” Maliwal said in the interview. “Bibhav is saying I was trespassing. How did I even reach the drawing room? If I was trespassing, I would have been stopped at the gate.”
The developments have kicked up a political firestorm amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in the country, with voting taking place in Delhi on Saturday.
“I cannot give a clean chit to anybody. I was screaming in pain and no one came for me. Arvind ji was seen with that man after the incident. My victim-shaming was done at the behest of Arvind Kejriwal. He himself did protests to save Bibhav Kumar,” said Maliwal.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party has been attacking Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party over the incident, AAP has alleged that Maliwal is working on the directions of the BJP.
“This is not some normal PA. He is the most trusted confidante of the chief minister. The CM is fully dependent on him. Bibhav has a bigger house than most ministers. The whole party is scared of him,” Maliwal told CNN-News18. “I have been doing everything since 2006. How can I do something like this? I did not have time to even help my sister in Harvard. She had been calling me, but I could not due to aandolans (protests). When I even went to meet her, I asked the party first. When the CM got arrested, I got held back in the USA due to my sister’s Covid infection, and another MP was given a red carpet when he came back.”
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