The Delhi BJP on Saturday wrote to Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena asking that Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson Swati Maliwal be suspended from her post till the completion of a police inquiry into the events leading up to the alleged Eve teasing against her following reports that the accused is an Aam Aadmi Party worker. The incident took place outside the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on the intervening night of January 18 and 19.

The BJP’s Delhi unit took to Twitter to allege that the AAP worker and a Hindi news channel teamed to execute “an alleged sting operation” aimed at defaming the Delhi Police. But it  failed because of the swift police action leading to the arrest of the accused driver in the case.

Early on Saturday, Delhi BJP CNN spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor wrote to Lieutenant Governor Saxena asking that Maliwal be sacked till the police inquired about the events around it.
“Sir all and one condemned the incident and it was satisfying to note that Delhi Police acted swiftly after the incident and arrested the alleged eveteaser within an hour but media reports on this indicate that the eveteaser involved, Harish Chandra Suryavanshi, is an active worker of Delhi’s ruling AAP from Sangam Vihar,” he stated.

“There are photographs of Harsh Chandra Suryavanshi campaigning with Aam Aadmi Party’s MLA Prakash Jarwal. Sir this matter now stands complicated and it appears that the incident was a conspiracy with a motive of painting the image of Delhi as an unsafe city for women,” Kapoor added.

“Sir I therefore request you as Administrator of Delhi to look into the matter and suspend Ms. Swati Maliwal from the post…till the inquiry of alleged eveteasing incident gets completed so that she can’t misuse her position to influence police inquiry,” Kapoor demanded.

After video footage of the incident involving Maliwal emerged on Friday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asked the L-G to concentrate on fixing the law-and-order situation in the city instead of interfering in the functioning of the AAP government, even as the BJP called the incident “a dirty conspiracy” hatched by Maliwal and a Hindi news channel to “demotivate and defame” the Delhi Police.

The police’s swift action, the BJP alleged, had exposed the “dirty conspiracy and false operation”. Delhi BJP spokesperson Shazia Ilmi tweeted that the sting “raises serious questions on the ethics” involved. “Is petty politics on an issue as serious as women’s safety justified?” she asked.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana questioned Maliwal’s silence on the incident for 48 hours. While the police were inquiring into the matter, the connection of the accused with the AAP MLA had exposed Swati Maliwal and she was expected to “try her best to influence the police inquiry in the matter by using her constitutional office”, he argued.