Call centres raid: AAP files EC plaint

NEW DELHI: An Aam Aadmi Party delegation, led by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, met chief election commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora on Friday to lodge a complaint against the Delhi police which, it claimed, was acting at the BJP’s behest to harass call centre employees hired by the party.

Earlier, AAP workers, led by Mr Sisodia, sat on a protest outside the Election Commission (EC) office alleging that raids were being conducted on call centres hired by the party to make people aware that their names had been deleted from the voters’ lists.

Mr Sisodia said barely an hour after he met the CEC on Friday to lodge a complaint against the Delhi police, a fourth raid was conducted.

“Demanding fair elections, we are sitting outside the election commission office to protest against the raid on the call centre. “After our meeting with the CEC, we were assured that he will look into the matter but within an hour we see that a fourth raid is conducted on the call centre,” he said outside the EC office. This is the fourth raid on the call centre in four consecutive days, he added. Mr Sisodia was joined by other party members, including Lok Sabha candidates Atishi, Raghav Chadha and senior leader Sanjay Singh.

“Why is CEC raiding our call centres and asking for our data? What is our crime? Pl tell our crime at least,” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a tweet. He also urged all the party MLAs to join the protest outside the election commission office. “Police has raided without any search warrant and is barging into server rooms and interrogating all call centre agents. What is going on? What is the crime?” he tweeted. “We need an answer. What is our fault that we are being raided,” he said.