Ahmedabad/Delhi, November 16
The Aam Aadmi Party’s Surat East Assembly seat candidate in Gujarat withdrew his nomination on Wednesday, with the AAP alleging he was kidnapped at the behest of the BJP and pressed to do so, a charge denied by the ruling party.
Addressing a press conference in Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said their Surat candidate Kanchan Jariwala, along with his family, had been missing since Tuesday.
“In this election, the BJP is miserably losing in Gujarat and has become so rattled that it has stooped to the level of kidnapping our candidate,” Sisodia alleged.
“Fearing defeat, the BJP goons kidnapped the AAP candidate from Surat, Kanchan Jariwala,” he alleged.
State AAP president Gopal Italia claimed their Surat East candidate appeared before the office of the Returning Officer on Wednesday under heavy police protection and surrounded by “BJP goons” to withdraw his candidature under the pressure of the ruling party.
Italia alleged that Jariwala had gone missing and was allegedly taken to an undisclosed location by the BJP goons who put pressure on him to stay away from the election.
Sisodia said, “This is not just kidnapping of our candidate, but kidnapping of democracy. This is a very dangerous situation in Gujarat.” He appealed to the Election Commission to take cognisance of it.
However, Surat city BJP president Niranjan Zanzmera refuted the allegations and said the AAP should instead “take care of its own house”.
“The BJP first wanted to get Jariwala’s nomination invalidated on the last date of the process on Tuesday. When his nomination was accepted, the BJP goons took him to an undisclosed location. His relatives told us that he was put under huge pressure to stay away from the election,” Italia claimed while talking to reporters in Surat.
