New Delhi: Less than 24 hours after he was assaulted at an election meeting, INDIA bloc candidate from North East Delhi Kanhaiya Kumar Saturday alleged that the attack was carried out at the behest of the BJP and its sitting MP Manoj Tiwari.
Addressing a press conference at North East Delhi Saturday, Kumar said he hoped Prime Minister Narendra Modi would condemn the attack during his first rally in the Trans-Yamuna area later in the day.
Kumar was attacked by two men, identified as Daksh Chaudhary and Annu Choudhary, who slapped him and flung black ink on him after an election meeting Friday. AAP councillor Chhaya Sharma, who had organised the meeting, was also allegedly attacked by the two men.
Kumar is a candidate from North East Delhi, where he’s up against BJP’s Manoj Tiwari. He said at his press conference that he had filed a police complaint regarding the attack and also informed the Returning Officer about it through a letter.
“The PM says Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. He is the PM of all the people in this country, including Chhaya Sharma, who was attacked. I hope he will condemn the incident during the rally and tell his friend, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, to direct the police to take action to ensure law and order in the area,” Kumar said at the press conference.
But Kumar refused to answer queries about Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal’s allegations of being assaulted by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s aide Bibhav Kumar, answering evasively: “We will hold a separate press conference on women’s security”.
AAP is Congress’s ally in Delhi this election.
Training the guns at the BJP and Tiwari, a Bhojpuri-actor-turned politician and the former chief of the Delhi BJP who has represented the North East Delhi seat twice now, Kumar said the attack on him was nothing but a sign of desperation over the impending election loss.
He also alleged that one of his attackers had shared the stage with Tiwari at several meetings, although he didn’t name which one of his attackers he was referring to.
According to sources, one of the alleged attackers, Annu, identifies himself as a member of the right-wing outfit Hindu Raksha Dal. The outfit, however, has denied any connection with him.
The second suspect, Daksh Chaudhary is allegedly a YouTuber associated with Annu.
“He is their supporter. They are asking for votes for them and attending their rallies. The attack just shows their desperation,” Kumar said.
Security of candidates during elections is the responsibility of the Election Commission of India, he said, also expressing the hope that the body would conduct a thorough inquiry into the incident.
He also said that since his candidature was announced, the BJP and Tiwari’s team have been trying to spread “misinformation” about him.
“They are circulating fake videos and spreading misinformation about me, as Manoj Tiwari knows that he is not getting the support of people this time,” he said, referring to the MP’s allegation that Kumar, a former student of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, had shouted “anti-national slogans” in 2016 when he was still a student.
BJP leader Neelkant Bakshi, who’s part of Tiwari’s team, dismissed Kumar’s allegations as unfounded. “Kanhaiya Kumar is losing elections from North East Delhi and his team is spreading rumours. We do not indulge in such petty things. Tukde Tukde wale Kumar is trying to create a sensation by dragging his opponent’s name (into the controversy) out of frustration,” he told ThePrint.
Delhi will go to polls on 25 May.
In a post on X just before the prime minister’s first rally, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, the party’s general secretary in charge (communications), asked him questions about the attack on Kanhaiya, the deteriorating law and order situation in northeast Delhi and sitting MP’s failure on carrying out development works.
“Today’s questions for the outgoing PM’s visit to North-East Delhi. 1. Does the PM condone the violent assault on @kanhaiyakumar by MP Manoj Tiwari’s associate? 2. Why has the Modi Sarkar failed to contain the high rates of crime in Northeast Delhi? 3.What happened to MP Manoj Tiwari’s clean Yamuna plans?”
He called the attack on Kumar pre-planned by a “BJP-linked goonda”. “Will he have the courage to disown Manoj Tiwari and his association with the accused? Will he commit to taking action against the accused? Or was the assault an instance of the PM’s general strategy of intimidating and browbeating the Opposition,” Ramesh asked in his post.
https://x.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1791812292839096380
Also Read: Delhi Police arrest Kejriwal’s aide Bibhav Kumar in AAP MP Swati Maliwal ‘assault’ case
Lack of development in the area
The Congress leader hit out at Tiwari for neglecting the constituency even while being the “richest candidate in Delhi”.
Tiwari, he claimed, was nervous because he has had no work done in the area in the last 10 years. “I invited him for a debate, but he is not ready. He has not done any work in the area and doesn’t have 10 projects to showcase in the last 10 years,” he said.
Citing examples of how Congress candidates in Indore and Surat withdrew their candidature, Kumar claimed the BJP now had their sights on him and were trying to “threaten” him.
“As they are not able to buy people, they threaten them. This is their strategy. Now, the BJP knows that Tiwari is losing the election so they are trying to threaten me by sending their goons,” Kumar said.
In his post, Ramesh, a former union environment minister in the Congress-led UPA government, called Tiwari’s promise of cleaning up Yamuna a “jumla“, accusing him of doing little on that front.
“In 2018, he launched his flagship ‘Yamunosa’ project and promised to resurrect the shrinking, polluted river within 5 years. Most notably, he had promised that ‘no drain will be allowed to merge into the river’…today, 12 of Delhi’s 18 major drains are still discharging untreated water into the Yamuna,” Ramesh said.
He also questioned the prime minister about Tiwari’s promise.
“The promised dam was never built, and even boats, let alone seaplanes, will have difficulty navigating the river. The Delhi stretch of the Yamuna continues to remain the most polluted. What does the outgoing PM have to say about MP Manoj Tiwari’s empty promises,” he asked in his post.
This is an updated version of this report
Also Read: AAP slams Swati Maliwal as BJP’s ‘conspiracy face’, Rajya Sabha MP alleges party making ‘U-turn’