New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday asked its Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal to step down from her post after she took a swipe at the party’s decision to pick Atishi as the Delhi Chief Minister. Earlier today, AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal named Atishi as the next Chief Minister of Delhi. Following the announcement, Maliwal in a post on X said that a woman whose family fought a long battle to “save terrorist Afzal Guru from being hanged” is being made the Chief Minister of Delhi.
Hitting out at Maliwal, senior AAP leader Dilip Pandey said she is reading out the BJP’s script despite being sent to the Parliament by the AAP. “Swati Maliwal takes the Rajya Sabha ticket from AAP but takes the script to react from BJP. If she has even a little shame, she should resign as a Rajya Sabha MP and choose the path to Rajya Sabha on a BJP ticket. If she wants to be in Rajya Sabha, she should get ticket from BJP,” he said.
#WATCH | Delhi: On AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal’s tweet on Atishi, AAP leader Dilip Pandey says, “Understand one thing. Swati Maliwal is a person who takes the ticket to Rajya Sabha from AAP but takes the script to react from BJP. If she has even a little shame, she should… pic.twitter.com/2EIOHK2DPC
— ANI (@ANI) September 17, 2024
Senior AAP leader Atishi was announced as the new Chief Minister of Delhi after the party unanimously agreed on her name proposed by Kejriwal in a meeting of the party’s legislators. Kejriwal will resign as Delhi CM this evening. Following his release from jail in the Delhi liquor policy case, Kejriwal had announced that he will not hold the CM post until the people pose their faith in him again and re-elect his party in the upcoming polls.
The AAP’s decision to choose Atishi for the top post did not go down well with Maliwal who claimed that claimed that Atishi’s parents had tried to save terrorist Afzal Guru from being hanged. “Today is a very sad day for Delhi. Today, a woman whose family fought a long battle to save terrorist Afzal Guru from being hanged is being made the Chief Minister of Delhi. His parents wrote mercy petitions to the Honorable President to save terrorist Afzal Guru,” Maliwal said on X.
दिल्ली के लिए आज बहुत दुखद दिन है। आज दिल्ली की मुख्यमंत्री एक ऐसी महिला को बनाया जा रहा है जिनके परिवार ने आतंकवादी अफ़ज़ल गुरु को फांसी से बचाने की लंबी लड़ाई लड़ी।
उनके माता पिता ने आतंकी अफ़ज़ल गुरु को बचाने के लिए माननीय राष्ट्रपति को दया याचिकाऐं लिखी।
उनके हिसाब से… pic.twitter.com/SbllONqVP0
— Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) September 17, 2024
