Close X
Thursday, October 31, 2024
ADVT 
India

Slaped Again! Arvind Kejriwal Fears Threat To Life Now

Darpan News Desk, IANS, 08 Apr, 2014 10:36 AM
    AAP leader and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday said he faced a threat to life after being slapped by a man while campaigning for his party here.
     
    "These attacks are scripted. When they (attackers) are arrested, they repeat the (same) script," Kejriwal told the media after being attacked by an auto-rickshaw driver who first garlanded the AAP leader.
     
    The attacker then gave a whacking slap, stunning Kejriwal.
     
    "Why are all the attacks taking place only on us?" Kejriwal later asked. "There will be more attacks, and we can also get killed."
     
    The attack in Sultanpuri, a dominantly low-income area in west Delhi, left the 45-year-old Kejriwal with a swollen left eye.
     
    The attacker was identified as 38-year-old Lali, an autorickshaw driver. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters roughed him up after the incident.
     
    On April 4, Kejriwal was punched in south Delhi by a teenager who too pretended to garland him.
     
    Tuesday's assault took place when Kejriwal, who was Delhi's chief minister for 49 days until Feb 14, was campaigning for AAP candidate Rakhi Birla. Delhi goes to polls Thursday.
     
    A party member told IANS that there was a growing feeling among party members that Kejriwal should accept the security a former chief minister is entitled to.
     
     
    In a quick tweet, Kejriwal asked: "Why am I being repeatedly attacked? Who (are) the masterminds? What do they want? What do they achieve?"
     
    He added philosophically: "...let them tell me (the) place n time. I will come there. Let them beat me as much as they want."
     
    Kejriwal further said in Hindi: "The way to truth is difficult, but ultimately truth prevails."
     
    The AAP leader, a former government official-turned-activist, later said that there was no place for violence in a democratic society.
     
    "This is the fifth attack on me in a month... Those who are attacking me are the victims of the system. I have no ill feeling towards them."
     
    "These attacks are scripted. When they (attackers) are arrested, they repeat the (same) script."
     
    Asked whey he was being targeted, he said the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party had spoiled the "setting" between various political parties.
     
    But he refused to accept security normally available to senior politicians.
     
    "I don't want security. As long as god wants me to live, no one can harm me. The day god feels my time is over, I will die, no one can stop that."
     
    The attacker denounced Kejriwal as a "liar" and said both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party were better than the AAP. 
     
    The BJP denied it was responsible, while the Congress accused Kejriwal of "scripting" the attack on him to remain in news.
     
    "It was a premeditated attack. He got it done since he wants to be in news," Congress' Delhi unit spokesperson Mukesh Sharma said at a press conference.
     
    AAP leader and Kejriwal confidant Manish Sisodia said such attacks cannot be stopped by beefing up security.
     
     
    Without naming anyone, he said that those attacking Kejriwal were getting money. "The last attack was a paid one. I don't know who are behind such incidents."

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Rahul seeks partnership between business and poor; says BJP balloon will burst

    Rahul seeks partnership between business and poor; says BJP balloon will burst
    Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday challenged the perception that the BJP was most likely to win the Lok Sabha election and said "this balloon will explode".

    Rahul seeks partnership between business and poor; says BJP balloon will burst

    'Tehsin Embraced Terror When He Was 18'

    'Tehsin Embraced Terror When He Was 18'
    Indian Mujahideen's operational head Tehsin Akhtar, now in police custody, embraced terrorism when he was only 18 years old. Such was his passion that his handlers immediately inducted him into the banned outfit

    'Tehsin Embraced Terror When He Was 18'

    First Look: Sand artist pays tribute to lost Malaysian Flight MH 370

    First Look: Sand artist pays tribute to lost Malaysian Flight MH 370
    Sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik Tuesday paid tribute to the passengers and crew members of the lost Malaysian airliner by creating a sand sculpture on the beach of Puri, his home town in Odisha.

    First Look: Sand artist pays tribute to lost Malaysian Flight MH 370

    It will be Kejriwal vs Modi in Varanasi

    It will be Kejriwal vs Modi in Varanasi
    In what will be the mother of all battles in the coming election, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal announced Tuesday he will take on BJP's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi from this Hindu holy city.

    It will be Kejriwal vs Modi in Varanasi

    The 'donkey route' to Britain: Hair-raising tales of illegal immigration

    The 'donkey route' to Britain: Hair-raising tales of illegal immigration
    This is the hair-rising tale of 12 Indians cheated by a dodgy agent who extracts big money from them on false promises and sent them off on “the donkey route” through Russia and Europe to Britain. 

    The 'donkey route' to Britain: Hair-raising tales of illegal immigration

    AAP Favours Consensual Gay Sex

    AAP Favours Consensual Gay Sex
    In a significant championing of gender justice and gay rights, the 16-month-old Aam Admi Party (AAP) will favour decriminalisation of homosexuality in its much-awaited manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls, party sources said.

    AAP Favours Consensual Gay Sex