Kejriwal accused of pressuring AAP leaders to target Swati Maliwal

New Delhi: AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal on Wednesday alleged that party leaders were being pressured to speak against her and do certain things to defame her. The Delhi police, meanwhile, brought back chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s aide Bibhav Kumar from Mumbai for the recovery of data from his iPhone. Mr Kumar is in five-day police custody, which will be over on Thursday.

The BJP claimed that the alleged disappearance of CCTV footage related to the case shows Mr Kejriwal’s involvement and his attempts to protect his aide.

On Tuesday, Mr Kumar had been taken to Mumbai for the discovery of data from his phone, which he had allegedly formatted before his arrest. The police suspects that Mr Kumar formatted his phone after transferring its data to some person or device in Mumbai. Mr Kumar's phones and laptop, and CCTV recordings from Mr Kejriwal's house, have been sent for forensic examination, an officer said.

The officer said as the police custody of Mr Kumar was ending on Thursday, investigators are trying to collect all evidence related to the case.

Ms Maliwal, in a post on X alleged that there is a “lot of pressure” on everyone in the party to malign her. “Yesterday I got a call from a big leader of the party. They told me how there is a lot of pressure on everyone, they have to say bad things against Swati, they have to break her by leaking her personal photos. It is being said that anyone who supports her will be expelled from the party.”

She added: "Someone has got the duty of doing a press conference and someone has got the duty of tweeting. It is someone's duty to call the volunteers sitting in America and get something out against me.”

Extending their support to Ms Maliwal, BJP leader and Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi launched a fresh attack against the AAP chief on the raging issue and alleged he had been putting pressure on AAP MP for a compromise.

Rejecting the AAP's allegation that the BJP was behind the entire episode, BJP leaders said she was an old associate of Mr Kejriwal and had herself lodged the police case against Mr Kumar for physically assaulting her at the chief minister's residence.

Mr Trivedi added that Mr Kejriwal claimed his government will ensure extensive deployment of CCTV to cover every part of the city. But even his residence does not have the facility, he said, taking a swipe at the chief minister.