As Vishwas says sorry to Jaitley, court closes case

NEWDELHI: AAP leader and founding member of the party, Kumar Vishwas, has written a letter to Arun Jaitley apologising for allegations of corruption made against the Union minister during his tenure as president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA).

Jaitley accepted the apology, after which the Delhi high court closed a defamation suit filed by the Union minister against Vishwas. Earlier, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and four other AAP leaders had apologised to Jaitley for their remarks against the minister.

In his letter, Vishwas said Kejriwal feared losing his chief minister’s position to his deputy Manish Sisodia if he was convicted of making false allegations.

“During the course as the cases progressed, legal experts informed Kejriwal that if he is found guilty, then he might be sent to jail for a few days. If that happens, then he will have to leave the chief minister’s post for a few days and make Manish Sisodia as the CM. “Under these circumstances, Kejriwal feared that when he returned, Sisodia would not return the CM’S position to him. This is the reason why, he first tried to settle the matter through different people and when he was unsuccessful, he started apologising by writing letters,” Vishwas alleged.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said he was not aware of AAP leader

the letter and declined to comment.

While apologising , Vishwas said he regretted the statements made against Jaitley and said the remarks were made at Kejriwal’s instructions.

“...Aam Aadmi Party also followed the traditions of the political parties where the party workers stood by the statements made by the top leadership of the party. We, without weighing the truth and without suspecting our leader, reiterated whatever he (Kejriwal) said...” Vishwas’s letter read.

Vishwas also claimed that being a friend and founding member of the party, he had cautioned Kejriwal not to make such statements without any evidence.

“However, he (Kejriwal) shouted at me and said that all the evidences that he has are true like his book ‘Swaraj’,” Vishwas said.

The party, however, denied all the allegations and said, “Party had relied on documents of DDCA in public domain and those provided by former Indian cricketers. AAP as a party had consciously decided not to exhaust its limited resources on multiple legal battles. If Vishwas, in his personal capacity, wants to peruse the case against Jaitley, the same documents can be easily obtained from former cricketers,” AAP spokesperson said.