BJP sees AAP as challenge, it has launched 'Operation Jhaadu' to crush us: Arvind Kejriwal
New Delhi: Amid a full-blown political war over the Swati Maliwal “assault” case, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday marched towards the BJP office and claimed that the saffron party has launched “Operation Jhaadu” to crush the AAP and vowed to counter it. The BJP hit back at the AAP, saying instead of indulging in "theatrics”, Mr Kejriwal should break his "silence" on the alleged assault on the AAP Rajya Sabha MP by his aide Bibhav Kumar.
Addressing AAP workers and leaders ahead of the party's proposed protest march to the BJP headquarters in the national capital, the Delhi chief minister claimed that the BJP sees the AAP as a threat and therefore wants to crush it. He cautioned the party cadres that there will be bigger challenges ahead and asked the party to be prepared to face them.
"The Prime Minister has made up his mind to completely destroy and crush the AAP, for which he has started an operation called Operation Jhaadu,” said Mr Kejriwal, adding, "How did I know about this? There are many people who go to meet the Prime Minister and many of them know us too. So, after meeting him (Prime Minister Naredndra Modi), they tell us, and almost everyone has the same version, that the first thing he talks about is that these AAP people are growing very fast. Before the AAP grows too big and becomes a challenge for the BJP in the future, it should be crushed. Under this operation, big leaders of the party will be arrested..."
The AAP chief claimed that "the AAP will be brought to the road. Plans are afoot to force the party to vacate its office".
Sticking to his Saturday’s ultimatum, Mr Kejriwal, along with his party's top leadership, marched towards the BJP office. However, the AAP’s march was stopped midway, following which the Delhi chief minister and other AAP leaders staged a sit-in protest on the road, raising slogans against the BJP and hailing Mr Kejriwal.
Speaking to the media at the protest site, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, “We waited for half an hour on the road for the police to come and arrest us. But the BJP accepted its defeat."
The BJP's Delhi unit chief Virendra Sachdeva, however, asked how the AAP came to the conclusion that the saffron party was involved in the assault on Ms Maliwal.
"It's a new political drama by Mr Kejriwal... He is free to stage protests and dharnas, but he should at least once utter a word for Ms Maliwal, who has been closely associated with him and his party for two decades."
Mr Sachdeva alleged that the AAP chief wants to send a senior lawyer to the Rajya Sabha and the "assault is connected to it”.
"Mr Kejriwal should break his silence instead of his 'dramebazi (theatrics)' and answer specific questions," Shehzad Poonawalla, the national spokesperson of the BJP, said in a post on X.
He asked Mr Kejriwal if he had ordered the "attack" on Ms Maliwal at the chief minister's residence and gave patronage to Kumar because he knows his "dark secrets".
