After censure, Arvind Kejriwal attacks Election Commission

New Delhi: After being censured by the Election Commission for his bribe remark in a Goa election rally, a defiant Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said the poll panel should make him its “brand ambassador” and acknowledge his efforts to check bribery in elections.

In his strongly-worded letter to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, the Delhi chief minister said the poll watchdog should re-examine its move to censure him. “By stopping me to say what I am saying, the Election Commission is not stopping corruption, but encouraging it. I hope you (the EC) will re-examine this,” Mr Kejriwal said in the letter.

“Through this comment, I am trying to stop bribery. In fact, the Election Commission should make me its brand ambassador,” the letter added.

Mr Kejriwal also demanded the poll panel to allow him to repeat his comments as those were aimed at checking graft. But the BJP didn’t take Mr Kejriwal’s letter to the EC kindly and said he has “denigrated” the poll watchdog and the entire election process.

BJP spokesman Sambit Patra accused Mr Kejriwal, who is also the AAP chief, of being a “self-proclaimed Chief Justice of Indian politics”. “He has time and again repeated his bribery remarks. By doing this, he is not only denigrating the credibility of the EC, but also the entire voting process,” Mr Patra said.

By telling voters to accept bribes, Mr Kejriwal is instigating the people to indulge in corruption, against which his entire politics is based, Mr Patra told reporters here.

The poll panel, while censuring the AAP national convenor, had said his statement amounted to “abetting and promoting electoral offence of bribery”.

“He wants to be Delhi chief minister on odd days, Punjab chief minister on even days and Goa chief minister on holidays,” the BJP leader said, using the Delhi government’s odd-even road rationing scheme to target Mr Kejriwal’s ambitious electoral campaign in Punjab and Goa.

The EC’s censure, however, failed to stop Mr Kejriwal, who claimed he was trying to end corruption through his remarks. He suggested the EC to publicise his statement to deal with bribery and corruption during elections.

“We have shown this in Delhi election. People took money from the BJP and Congress but voted for us. If the Election Commission uses my statement and propagates it, then in two years, the political parties will stop distributing notes,” he said.

“A court in Delhi had ruled that a similar statement I made earlier does not amount to bribery,” Mr Kejriwal said in the letter.