Edited by Deepali Verma
The crime branch of the Delhi Police visited the official residence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on February 3, to serve him a notice to join the probe into the Aam Aadmi Party’s allegations that the BJP was trying to poach their MLAs.
As per the sources within the Chief Minister’s Office, it was in agreement to accept the crime branch notice and to provide a receiving in return. However, they alleged the police were not serving them the notice and further had brought the media with them. Another allegation used by the Chief Minister’s Office is that the police had come ‘just to defame them’.
However, the sources within the crime branch informed that they wanted to hand over the notice to the Chief Minister personally.
The development is placed a day after the crime branch team visited the residences of Kejriwal and cabinet minister Atishi on February 2, to serve them notices regarding the same. However, the two leaders rejected the notices.
Once they denied the notice, sources within the Delhi Police had said its team would visit their residences again on February 3.
THE BACKGROUND
The AAP, in the week gone by, had alleged that the BJP had offered Rs 25 crore each to seven of its MLAs to quit the party while simultaneously threatening to topple the Kejriwal government.
Taking to X, Kejriwal had made these allegations public in a post.
Atishi, during the press conference, had alleged that the BJP had launched “Operation Lotus 2.0” in Delhi. “They had made a likely attempt to poach AAP MLAs previous year by offering them money but failed.”
She remarked that the same conspiracies were hatched by the BJP in the past also. In 2022, they tried to break away AAP MLAs and approached them to come onboard with the BJP by promising money, she added.
After the AAP’s allegations, a delegation of the Delhi BJP, led by Sachdeva, had held a meeting with the city police chief on January 30, seeking a probe into Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s allegations.
After a meeting with Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora at the Police headquarters, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said Kejriwal was asked to prove his allegations but no one from the AAP had come forward with any evidence.
This explicitly marked that the charges levelled by the Delhi chief minister and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders were “completely baseless”, Sachdeva had said.
