Kejriwal’s stunning U-turn – From deleting AAP voters to BJP settled Bangladeshi, Rohingyas

New Delhi: Days after calling illegal Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingya Muslims its voters when Election Commission started drive to identify and remove them from the voter list, Aam Aadmi Party appears to be on the backfoot.

It is evident from AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal virtually conceding that the “illegal voters” are real as he blamed BJP for settling them in Delhi.

It all started on December 6 when Kejriwal accused the BJP of orchestrating thousands of votes in various Assembly constituencies ahead of the polls due in February.

Kejriwal said that application for deletion of more than 11,000 votes in the Shahdara constituency were filed by a BJP leader with the Delhi's poll panel.

Soon after, the BJP accused AAP of helping illegal Rohingyas and Bangladeshis in Delhi become voters during its 10-year regime, and asserted not to allow any fake votes to be cast in the upcoming Assembly polls.

The BJP leaders alleged AAP was involved in creating fake votes of illegal Rohingyas and Bangladeshis over the past 10 years of its rule in Delhi, screening videos in the press conference.

Five days later, Kejriwal met the Election Commission on December 11 and urged it to halt any deletion of voter names in the electoral rolls ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections.

After the meeting, Kejriwal claimed the EC gave them several assurances, including that no large-scale deletions would occur before the Delhi elections and strict action would be taken against those filing questionable deletion requests.

On the day when Kejriwal was meeting the EC officials, the Delhi Police had started verification drive against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the national capital and collected documents of suspected illegal migrants.

It was reported that the verification drive started after a delegation of clerics and Muslim leaders from Hazrat Nizamuddin met LG VK Saxena on Saturday and expressed concern over the treatment of minority communities in Bangladesh and urged stringent action against infiltrators in the city.

The delegation highlighted that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to rent houses or secure employment and called for the immediate cancellation of government documents such as Aadhaar and voter IDs acquired fraudulently, the LG Office said in a note.

As soon as the AAP realised the issue was real and could harm the party electorally, Kejriwal accused the Centre of "settling" them here and "failing" to secure the country's borders citing a couple of old tweets ‘selectively’ from Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

Puri hit back with an X post saying, "Aam Aadmi Party continues with its politics of diversion, false narratives and half-truths. Facts and actual position on illegal Rohingya migrants were immediately clarified through a tweet on the same day which they selectively chose to ignore, and continue to do so." 

"No Rohingya migrant has been given a government house in Delhi. In fact, contrary to the drummed-up AAP rhetoric, they are actually the ones who play host to the illegal Rohingyas in Delhi, settle them in large numbers, give them electricity and water, and even pay them Rs 10,000," he alleged.

Last week on Friday, Kejriwal attempted to give illegal migrants issue a regional colour and accused BJP president J P Nadda of calling the people of the Purvanchali community "Rohingyas and Bangladeshis", and "admitting" that their names were being deleted from voters' list in Delhi ahead of assembly polls.

The frequently changing narrative of Kejriwal was slammed by Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva who called AAP supremo as an expert at changing stand and statements according to the situation. 

Sachdeva said Kejriwal was raising the issue of Purvanchalis as the BJP cornered him for supporting illegal Rohingyas and Bangladeshis staying in Delhi.

On Monday, the AAP rushed to collect the credit for the Directorate of Education order asking schools in Delhi to prevent the enrolment of "illegal Bangladeshi migrants" by ensuring a strict document verification process during admission.

Cut to today, Delhi Police unearthed a gang involved in the illegal immigration of Bangladeshi citizens and arrested 11 people in connection with the case.

Among the 11 people, five are Bangladeshi citizens and others were found to be involved in making forged documents.

The Delhi Police is conducting a drive to identify illegal immigrants in the national capital.

In a nutshell, the AAP’s narrive of ‘BJP getting AAP voters deleted’ took just a couple of weeks to change to ‘BJP is behind settling illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims’.