Manish Sisodia sends legal notice to Manoj Tiwari, 2 others

NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday served a legal notice on Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and his party colleagues Vijender Gupta and Parvesh Verma for “false allegations” on classrooms built by the AAP government.

Mr Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, sought a written apology from them or else he would go ahead with legal proceedings including prosecution for criminal defamation.

The deputy chief minister has sent the notice through his counsel Mohd Irsad. Mr Tiwari and other leaders had on Monday alleged a Rs 2,000-crore “scam” in the construction of school classrooms by the Delhi government.

Citing an RTI reply, Mr Tiwari had claimed that the AAP government constructed 12,782 classrooms at a cost of Rs 2,892 crore, while it needed just '800 crore.

“You have alleged that the buildings being built are substandard and that the 34 contractors are Mr (CM Arvind Kejriwal) Kejriwal’s, the Aam Aadmi Party’s members and my clients’ relatives, friends and colleagues, without any basis for these statement. Each of these statements, as well as the other statements in the offending publication is false and baseless,” Sisodia’s lawyer said in the notice.

On Tuesday, Mr Sisodia had said the AAP government was committed to providing quality education to poor children and would not shy away from spending Rs 25 lakh per classroom in state-run schools.

AAP supporters on Wednesday staged a protest outside the residence of Mr Tiwari. They held placards asking Mr Tiwari to “apologise to children” and “stop politicising the education of children”. They were later detained by the police and taken to the Mandir Marg police station.