'Bar Kejriwal from campaigning': BJP meets EC on AAP chief's 'poison in Delhi water' claim

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Tuesday met the Election Commission of India (ECI) officials to seek action against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who claimed that the BJP leaders had "mixed poison" in the Yamuna flowing to the national capital from Haryana.

Backing its demand to bar Kejriwal from campaigning in the Delhi assembly elections, the BJP said that if the former chief minister was not stopped, it could lead to "potential public unrest".


The BJP delegation of Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Bhupendra Yadav, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva and Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini visited the ECI and urged the poll body to direct Kejriwal to issue a "public retraction of his false statement and apologise for creating public panic".

The AAP's nemesis asked the ECI to "initiate and pursue appropriate legal action and lodge FIR under the relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Disaster Management Act".

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman lashed out at Kejriwal for speaking "irresponsibly" and called him a "self-proclaimed anarchist", who she said poses a danger to India's federal structure and politics.

She said the AAP chief's statement has "actually brought in fear in the mind of public in Delhi".

"Today, a delegation of BJP, in which my senior Bhupender Yadav, Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini, Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva were with us. We came to protest and submit the petition on the very unfair, irresponsible and violative of code of conduct statement made by former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. It is a very dangerous statement - dangerous for all of us; it is dangerous for India's federal structure and politics, but it is not dangerous for him who is a self-proclaimed anarchist. It comes easily for him to speak irresponsibly. But, the statement that he has made has actually brought in fear in the mind of public in Delhi...," Nirmala Sitharaman was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Monday made a big claim ahead of the Delhi elections, accusing BJP of mixing poison in the water that is coming to Delhi from Haryana.

Even earlier today he defended his "poison in Yamuna" remark and said that he was not afraid of Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini's threat of taking legal action against him.