AAP’s poaching allegations: Cops serve notice on Kejri, seek reply in three days

Samad Hoque

New Delhi, February 3

After five hours of high drama on Saturday, the Delhi crime branch officials served a notice on Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal over the ruling AAP party’s allegations that the BJP tried to poach their MLAs with monetary inducements.

Cops told Kejriwal to respond in three days and reveal the names of the MLAs allegedly approached by the opposition party. “We have served the notice on him (Kejriwal). He can give the reply in three days in a written form,” a Delhi police officer said.

The eventual serving of the notice came after a long day of back and forth between the cops and the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) officials over the person who should receive the notice. The CMO officials said they were ready to take the notice, but the cops were unwilling to give them a receipt. Cops, on their part, were insisting on serving the notice on the CM personally.

The AAP later posted a video where party leader Jasmine Shah was seen confronting the crime branch ACP Pankaj Arora on why the cops were insisting on giving the notice to the CM.

Shah’s X post said, “I asked a simple question to a Delhi police officer standing in front of the entrance of residence of CM @ArvindKejriwal. Under which law is he insisting on handing over a notice personally to the CM? He had no answers. It is clear they are only here to do ‘nautanki’.”

The cops acted on a complaint by Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva where Sachdeva asked for an investigation into AAP accusations that the BJP tried to poach seven ruling party MLAs by offering them Rs 25 crore each.

Later, Kejriwal took to X and said, “I sympathise with this crime branch police officer. What is their fault? Their job is to stop crime in Delhi. But instead of stopping crime, this kind of drama is being done. That is why crime is increasing so much in Delhi.”

“Their political masters are asking me which MLA of ‘AAP’ was being targeted? But you know more than me? You know everything. Why only Delhi, do you know which MLAs from other parties and which governments were toppled in the last few years across the country? Then why this drama?” the CM added.