defamation case was filed against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet minister, Atishi, over the allegations of poaching Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs by the Bharatiya Janata Party to topple the Delhi government.
In his complaint submitted to additional chief metropolitan magistrate Tanya Bamniyal, Praveen Shankar Kapoor, who is the media head of BJP’s Delhi unit, alleged that the two AAP leaders made “false, fabricated, and manipulated statements”, accusing the saffron party of trying to buy and poach AAP MLAs and topple the Delhi government, “with a malafide intention to lower BJP's and its workers' reputation in general public”, news agency PTI reported.
“By such kind of malicious/ scandalous statements, you and your colleagues defame BJP and its members and try to gain political mileage by use of platform of press conferences to make such false statements knowing fully well that all social media platforms would carry such news as you are not only an MLA but a Minister in the govt of NCT of Delhi,” the complaint read.
The magistrate has listed the matter for May 4 for pre-summoning evidence.
Earlier this month, the BJP had sent a defamation notice to Atishi following her claim that she had been approached to join the saffron party or face arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) within a month.
Holding a press conference, Atishi had claimed the ED was planning to arrest her and AAP leaders Saurabh Bharadwaj, Durgesh Pathak, and Raghav Chadha. She added she was told they would be arrested if they did not join the BJP.
“I have been told that I should boost my political career by joining the BJP, otherwise the ED will arrest me in a month. ...Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP have made up their minds to crush AAP and all its leaders," she had said.
Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal in January, had claimed that the BJP contacted seven of their MLAs and were planning to topple the AAP government. In a post on X, he had claimed, “Recently, they contacted 7 MLAs of Delhi and said - 'Kejriwal will be arrested after a few days. After that, the MLAs will be split. We have talked to 21 MLAs. We are talking to others as well. After that, we will topple the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi. You too come. We will give you 25 crore rupees and make you contest the elections on a BJP ticket. Although he claims that he has contacted 21 MLAs, but according to our information, till now he has contacted only 7 MLAs and all of them have refused'”.
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