When AAP Supremo Arvind Kejriwal had come into the public eye as an anti-corruption crusader as part of ‘Team Anna’, he used to make a barrage of ‘exposes’ against various individuals. Back then, most of this allegations were backed by reliable documents available in public domain.
However, as he progressed from an activist to a politician, his means changed. His allegations increasingly became ‘rhetoric’ with hearsay and sometimes downright lies being the basis of his assertions. While most of his rhetoric were dismissed as political stunts, some of those on the receiving end of his lofty allegations didn’t take take them kindly and fought back in the form of defamation cases.
As a result, the Delhi Chief Minister has now notched at least 11 defamation cases [1][2][3][4] against himself, which include three by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, one by Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and one by Kapil Sibal’s son.
The first defamation case was filed against Kejriwal in 2013 by Pawan Khera, the then political secretary to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, whom Kejriwal had accused of massive corruption. While the latest one was filed against him by BJP member Ankit Bhardwaj, who sought a damage of Re 1 case against Kejriwal because he had no knowledge of either Kejriwal or Sanjay Singh (the other defendant) having any valuable assets. Both of them had false accused Ankit of attacking rebel AAP leader Kapil Mishra.
Now it seems that Kejriwal has finally decided to untangle the web of defamation cases around him by saying sorry in one such matter.
According to reports, Avtar Singh Bhadana who is currently a BJP MLA from Meerapur constituency in Uttar Pradesh, had filed a defamation case against Kejriwal based on a statement he had made on January 31, 2014. In the statement Kejriwal had alleged that Bhadana (who was then a member of the Congress party) was one of the most corrupt persons in India. Bhadana had then filed a Rs 1 crore defamation case against Kejriwal and also sought prosecution for the same.
As reported by various media outfits [1][2] Kejriwal has now submitted a written apology to Bhadana. He has also claimed that he filed the case after being misled by his associates. Kejriwal has reportedly admitted that the allegations he leveled against Bhadana were not true, and thus he was tendering an apology.