Hitting back at Delhi Lt Governor V.K. Saxena’s remarks on the assault case of Swati Maliwal, the Aam Aadmi Party said his statements proved that the Rajya Sabha MP was working for the BJP.
The party alleged that the BJP was hatching new conspiracies every day against it in the lead up to the polls.
"Sometimes they rake up the excise policy case, sometimes the Swati Maliwal incident and sometimes the allegation of party receiving foreign funding. BJP will use new tactics against us till polls. BJP is losing the polls badly and they are trying to lift their status using the Maliwal issue," the AAP said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, Saxena said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's "deafening silence" on the alleged assault on Maliwal "speaks volumes of his stance on safety of women".
"I have been deeply distressed over the unfolding media narrative over the last few days on the issue of alleged assault on Ms Swati Maliwal, MP, Aam Aadmi Party, at the residence of Chief Minister, when she went there to meet him all alone,” Saxena said in a statement on X.
Maliwal had alleged that Kejriwal’s personal secretary Bibhav Kumar assaulted her at the chief minister’s official residence on May 13. Kumar was arrested on Saturday.
"I would have expected that at least for the sake of propriety, my CM would have come clean, rather than being evasive and dodgy. His deafening silence speaks volumes of his stance on safety of women,” Saxena said in his statement.
He further lamented that such “shameful incidents” and the “insensitive and conspiratorial contemptuous government response” tarnish India's image worldwide.
On May 14, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh had said that the incident with Maliwal was "highly condemnable" and claimed that Kumar had "misbehaved" with her.
However, two days later, the party launched a scathing attack on the MP, saying she was part of a BJP conspiracy to discredit the AAP and Chief Minister Kejriwal amid the ongoing general elections.
"Today a video has surfaced that has exposed the lie of Maliwal. In her FIR, she has said she was brutally assaulted and she was in pain, and buttons of her shirt were torn. A video that has surfaced shows an entirely different reality," senior AAP leader Atishi said at a press conference.