DEFAMATION CASES

AAP calls Kejriwal's apology 'spree' a strategy, Punjab unit unimpressed

Arvind Kejriwal (File) Arvind Kejriwal

It is apology time for Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, and it appears to be costing him and his party dear.

Bhagwant Singh Mann, a Lok Sabha MP, resigned from the post of president of the party's Punjab unit on Friday morning, citing the apology that Kejriwal made to former Punjab minister and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikramjit Singh Majithia. Mann called it a betrayal of the party in the state and maintained the party unit should have been consulted before such a move. Other AAP MLAs including Kanwar Sandhu and Sukhpal Singh Khaira are also angry and are openly so.

The AAP and the Shiromani Akali Dal were locked in a bitter and fierce electoral battle in Punjab in late 2015 and early 2016, with AAP seeming to be having the best chance of toppling the two-term SAD government. While that did not happen—with the Congress pipping them to the post—the AAP had made the drug racket in Punjab, allegedly involving Majithia, among others, the major plank in their campaign. Majithia had then slapped a defamation case against Kejriwal in Amritsar.

Delhi apart, Punjab is the only state where the Aam Aadmi Party has a legislative presence.

Speculations are rife that Kejriwal may next tender an apology in a defamation case slapped on him by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Aam Aadmi Party conceded that there are many similar cases against the Delhi chief minister, but chose to call them largely political and alleged they were framed to ensure that Kejriwal was constantly engaged in a rigmarole of court appearances instead of doing his work as chief minister. And apologising was their strategy in dealing with them, the party said.

In a statement, Saurabh Bhardwaj, spokesperson of the AAP, said Kejriwal was facing dozens of civil and criminal cases related to defamation, putting up of hoardings and posters during election campaigns, violation of Section 144, public protests and so forth in Delhi.

“There are similar cases in other parts of India like Benares, Amethi, Punjab, Assam, Maharashtra, Goa and many other remote places. Most of these cases require personal appearance in the court. These cases have been foisted by our political rivals to demotivate us and keep our leadership busy in these legal matters,” Bharadwaj said.

“The decision to amicably sort out all such legal cases is a strategy as devised by the legal team of the party. The political cases in Delhi have been put on fast track, forcing MLAs and ministers to virtually attend cases on daily basis in courts at Delhi and other states in the country,” he added.

Bharadwaj admitted that contesting cases was taking a toll on the already constrained resources of the party and individuals.

But Sandhu is not impressed. “If you stand for truth, facing defamation cases is a part of life,” he maintained. While Mann has said his fight as an 'aam aadmi' will continue, there has so far been no move to placate him or others in the Punjab unit of AAP.

In the case of the apology to Majithia, Kejriwal can claim to have somewhat benefited by the move. Majithia said the case ends as far as he was concerned, and his side was withdrawing the defamation case.

There is no guarantee that Jaitley, who has slapped two defamation cases claiming damages of Rs 10 crore each, will take a similar lenient view of it. The first one was filed against Kejriwal and a few other AAP leaders who accused Jaitley of corrupt practices when he was president of the Delhi cricket association. Ironically, the second was slapped when Kejriwal's lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, used language that Jaitley said was scandalous.

In May 2014, before he became chief minister, Kejriwal was arrested and sent to Tihar jail after he declined to furnish a bail bond in a criminal defamation case filed by Nitin Gadkari, now the union minister for transport and highways. It was only after he apologised to Gadkari on the directions of the court that Kejriwal got bail.