New Delhi: One person has been arrested in connection with an alleged assault on Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar during a meeting at the AAP office in New Usmanpur, police said on Tuesday.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police North-East, Joy Tirkey, the accused has been identified as Ajay Kumar alias Ranbir Bhatti (41).
The alleged incident happened last Friday when Kumar was interacting with people at the AAP office in New Usmanpur. AAP councillor Chhaya Sharma has hosted the meeting.
The purported video of the incident has gone viral.
In the video, it can be seen that some people while interacting with Kanhaiya Kumar garlanded him. While garlanding him, some people threw ink on the Congress leader and tried to assault him.
When AAP leader Chhaya Sharma tried to intervene, those people also misbehaved with her and threatened her, the police said.
Earlier, reacting to the viral video, Congress leader Abhishek Dutta accused the BJP of assaulting Kanhaiya Kumar and said that this would cost them the seat.
"This one slap is going to make the Bharatiya Janata Party lose the elections in Delhi. @kanhaiyakumar will win the elections, now it remains to be seen how many more these cowardly BJP people beat an innocent Bihari," he posted on X.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot also condemned the incident and said that there is no place for "violence" in a civilized society.
"There is a buzz of change in the whole country...People are angry with the 10-year-old central government.
People want to change...Especially the youth. In politics, in a civilized society, there is no place for violence.
You may have opposition, you may have disagreements but violence is wrong. I strongly condemn it. Elections should be fought on issues," Sachin Pilot told reporters.
Kanhaiya Kumar is the Congress candidate from the North-East Delhi constituency in the Lok Sabha elections. He is up against two-time Bharatiya Janata Party MP Manoj Tiwari.
As part of the seat-sharing arrangement, the Congress is contesting three seats while AAP has fielded candidates from four constituencies in Delhi.
Voting in 7 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi will be held on May 25. The counting of the votes will be done on June 4.
