The Delhi police on Wednesday arrested a 33-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly for the graffiti spotted inside metro coaches and stations asking Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to “leave” Delhi.
Though the Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had claimed a threat to the CM’s life after the incident on Monday, the police booked the accused, identified as Ankit Goel, for defacing public property.
Mr. Goel was released on bail later in the day, drawing a sharp response from AAP that called the police action a “sham” exercise and accused the BJP of “protecting criminals”.
After videos and pictures of the graffiti had surfaced on social media on Monday, AAP had called it part of a series of “conspiracies” hatched against the CM by the BJP, which had denied the charge terming it a “ploy” by AAP to gain sympathy ahead of the Lok Sabha polling in the city.
Meanwhile, a police officer said Mr. Goel works as a loan manager in a bank and had come to Delhi just to scribble the messages and returned to his native place thereafter.
Mr. Goel told reporters that earlier he was an AAP supporter but got disappointed with it following the levelling of “corruption charges” against several of its leaders.
Reacting to it AAP in a statement said,”Anyone who attacks the Chief Minister enjoys the BJP’s political protection.”
Referring to a protest outside the Delhi Chief Minister’s home two years ago, the party said the BJP’s Bengaluru MP Tejasvi Surya had led a mob that vandalised property. “Despite being clearly visible in a CCTV footage, the Delhi police didn’t even name him in the FIR. Worse still, the BJP rewarded the other attackers with a ticket in the the 2022 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections,” it said.
It also said people of the country are fed up with the negative and regressive politics of the BJP, ready to teach it a lesson in the Lok Sabha poll.
