Jaitley remark surprising: AAP

He said Minister’s allegations against African nationals were "racist"

Maintaining that the safety and security of women and citizens was uppermost for it, the Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday lashed out at the BJP for levelling “wild charges” against its government.

The party expressed “surprise and disappointment” at the comments of BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who described as “racist” Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti’s allegations of drug abuse against African-origin foreigners staying in his constituency.

“We are surprised at the extent of BJP’s frustration that it is willing to overlook the inaction of the police [as] against the steps taken by our MLAs in bringing the cases of sex and drug racket and dowry-related crime to their attention,” said AAP leader Sanjay Singh after a political affairs committee (PAC) meeting here.

It was attended, among others, by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Yogendra Yadav, Kumar Vishwas and Dilip Pandey.

Prohibitory orders

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police have imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Cr.PC in Delhi from Monday, when Mr. Kejriwal and his MLAs plan to stage a dharna outside the Union Home Minister’s office to press for suspension of police officers involved in an altercation with Mr. Bharti.

Asked whether the party would violate the prohibitory orders, Mr. Singh said: “We will wait till 10 a.m. on Monday to see if our demand is met.”

Disciplinaray panel

Answering other questions, he said the party had formed a five-member disciplinary committee to deal with rebel MLA Vinod Binny, who has levelled charges against Mr. Kejriwal.

It would look into the matter and recommend action after taking legal opinion.

The panel, headed by Pankaj Gupta, will have Yogendra Yadav, Ilias Azmi, Ashish Talwar and Gopal Rai as members.

“We received Binny’s reply to our show-cause only yesterday [Saturday],” Mr. Singh said.

The PAC approved the formation of an Economic Affairs Committee, headed by executive committee member Prithvi Reddy. Among others, the panel has Meera Sanyal, a new entrant to the party.

Mr. Singh said the party had received 2,000 applications from 180 Lok Sabha constituencies but it would not announce the first list of candidates before another four or five days.

The report erroneously said that Manish Tiwari was one of the participants of a political affairs committee meeting of the Aam Aadmi Party. It should have been Manish Sisodia.