Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal lashed out sharply on Thursday against her ex-party chief Arvind Kejriwal, blaming him for political one-upmanship in the way protesters farmers were handled brutally at the border of Punjab. She blamed Kejriwal for displaying "double standards" in his approach.
Maliwal contended that the crackdown was strategically released to win the hearts of the Ludhiana business community as Kejriwal is supporting his party member, Sanjeev Arora, an incumbent Rajya Sabha member, in the hopes of achieving a by-election victory in the upcoming Punjab Assembly by-election. A by-election victory in this one would clear the way for Kejriwal to get a Rajya Sabha seat from Punjab, Maliwal said.
She took to social media platform X to voice her criticism, stating, "The real goal behind the atrocities inflicted on farmers at night is not to clear the highway, but to pave the way for Kejriwal ji’s Rajya Sabha seat! Kejriwal ji believes that by doing this, he can win over the businessmen of Ludhiana, win the election, and have Arora ji’s Rajya Sabha seat vacated."
Maliwal also criticized Kejriwal's double-standard approach towards farmers, saying that while Kejriwal had declared himself a "sevadaar" when farmers had protested in Delhi during Punjab's elections, now that farmers were protesting in Punjab, Kejriwal had turned to force to disperse the protest instead of talking to them. "Why such a double standard?" Maliwal asked.
The MP, who had earlier alleged Kejriwal and his former aide Bibhav Kumar of treating her shabbily at the then Delhi Chief Minister's residence, further added, "Taking recourse to such dictatorial steps rather than speaking is another example of Kejriwal's fury and lust for vengeance."
A former close associate of Kejriwal and chairperson of the Delhi Women's Commission, Maliwal's ties with the AAP leader turned sour due to political differences. Ever since, she has organized several protests against Kejriwal. The AAP has charged her as a BJP puppet who intends to tarnish the reputation of the party.
Maliwal's statement was made when Kejriwal was already in the process of campaigning for the Ludhiana West Assembly by-election, even before the date of voting was announced. The by-election was necessitated after the death of the incumbent MLA, Gurpreet Gogi, in January due to accidental causes. The election is likely to be held before July 11.
The AAP presently has seven Rajya Sabha seats from the state of Punjab, among which the members are Sandeep Pathak, Raghav Chadha, Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal, Balbir Singh Seechewal, Vikramjit Singh, and Arora, who is a member of the upper house since 2022.
At the same time, opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa attacked the Bhagwant Mann government for allegedly misleading farmers. Bajwa criticized the government for arresting farmer leaders following the collapse of the third round of talks with the Centre.
In a major crackdown, the Punjab Police arrested several union leaders like Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarwan Singh Pandher and employed gentle force to chase away protesters in Shambhu and Khanauri on the Punjab-Haryana border on Wednesday evening.
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