Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal on Thursday accused AAP leaders of “victim-shaming” her over.
The allegation that Arvind Kejriwal’s personal assistant, Bibhav Kumar, thrashed her inside the former’s house. Amid a massive political row triggered by her explosive charge, the former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief expressed readiness to undergo the polygraph test (also called the lie-detector test).
In an interview, Swati Maliwal accused Bibhav Kumar of carrying out her proverbial “cheer haran (disrobing)” inside the Delhi chief minister’s drawing room. She accused AAP leaders of attempting “character assassination.”
“I am feeling very betrayed right now, by everyone, whatever I am feeling right now, I just wish that God forbid anyone ever feels like this. I have lost everything. With people I worked with, I sat with them…. What they have not done to scare me, ‘Cheer Haran mera uss ghar mein hua aur Charitra Haran mera roz chalaya jaa raha hai’ (my character assassination is being done every day). I am unable to understand how this happened and why this happened. How can one be treated so badly? I feel very betrayed, I feel very let down,” Swati Maliwal told ANI.
Amid AAP’s efforts to refute her allegations, Swati Maliwal claimed the party has been trying to prove that she levelled false allegations against Bibhav Kumar.
“When did I say in the FIR that my clothes were torn, when did I say in the FIR that my head was wounded… I wrote exactly what happened to me, word to word. I did not write anything more or beyond. And if I am wrong then I am ready to undergo a polygraph test, and I want the police to do it. Everything will be clear then,” she said.
Swati Maliwal said she is willing to do anything to prove that she is speaking the truth.
Reacting to AAP leader Atishi’s allegation that the MP filed the FIR at the behest of the BJP due to an old case against her, Swati Maliwal claimed there was no merit in the case.
“The case was filed against me in 2016. This is absolutely a false case. There is no merit in the case. A charge sheet was filed in 2017. I was never arrested in this case and will never be arrested…I was given tenure in Delhi Mahila Commission twice more after this case. By CM sahib too, by LG sahib too. So this thing is absolutely clear that this is absolutely a false case,” she said.
Swati Maliwal said the high court had put a stay on the case.
She accused AAP MP Sanjay Singh of first backing her and then making a U-turn. She claimed she was told not to file the FIR against Bibhav Kumar.
The AAP leader said she was told by someone that the party would isolate her if she filed the complaint. However, she thought that if a person could thrash a Member of Parliament, what could he do with women who don’t have any powers.
“I was told that if you file this complaint then the entire party will isolate you. I was told that the entire party will portray you as an agent of the BJP. I was told that nobody will stand with me. Still, I didn’t think about what would happen to me, what would happen to my career, what would these people do with me,” Maliwal said.
Swati Maliwal has accused Kumar of slapping and kicking her.
The Aam Aadmi Party, meanwhile, has claimed that Maliwal barged into Kejriwal’s house without a prior appointment and created a ruckus. The party claimed she wanted to harm Arvind Kejriwal.
The BJP has been backing the AAP MP. Earlier this week, the ruling party questioned AAP as to how she could barge into the chief minister’s house despite the latter’s Z-level security cover.
Bibhav Kumar has been arrested in the case. The Delhi Police have formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter.