Aam Aadmi Party (MP) Swati Maliwal has been in the spotlight following her alleged assault by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s close aide Bibhav Kumar earlier this week.
On May 13, Delhi Police’s PCR received a call from Maliwal who alleged that Kejriwal’s personal staff attacked her, sources told CNN-News18. The police said the first call came around 9.34 am following which the AAP leader came to the police station.
Days later, Bibhav was spotted with Kejriwal and AAP MP Sanjay Singh in Lucknow. Singh commented on the incident, saying that the AAP is our family and the issue should not be politicised.
Meanwhile on Thursday, a Delhi Police team reached Maliwal’s house to seek details of the incident.
While the BJP continues to launch attacks on Kejriwal and the AAP, Maliwal has so far remained maintained silence on the issue. The former Delhi Women’s Commission (DCW) chief is neither seen in public since the incident amid the high stakes Lok Sabha elections nor she attended any meetings with AAP leaders.
Who is Swati Maliwal?
Maliwal, the 40-year-old, is the first woman MP of the AAP who took the oath earlier this year. An IT graduate from the JSS Academy of Technical Education, Maliwal plunged into activism when she joined Kejriwal-led NGO Parivartan, which was then working in the slums of Delhi and trying to ensure that the benefits of welfare schemes actually reach people.
Kejriwal would go on to win the prestigious Magasasay Award and as his work expanded, Maliwal stuck to the work in the NGO. It is here that she met Manish Sisodia who had quit his TV career to become an activist and who would later go on to become the deputy chief minister of Delhi.
A crucial turning point in Maliwal’s life was when the Anna Hazare campaign split into two, with one side opting for politics while the other preferring the form of activism.
Part of the core team of the Anna Hazare movement, and more of a ‘people’s movement’ person, the idealistic Maliwal was disappointed the day Kejriwal announced at Jantar Mantar that a political party would be formed. And though she remained a part of Kejriwal’s core group because of her long association, she took her time before plunging into politics. While many of her contemporaries were offered tickets or given charge of handling crucial responsibilities, when AAP contested elections for the first time in 2013, Maliwal was not one of them.
Maliwal was once referred as “She is the lady Singham of Delhi” by Kejriwal as she stormed the albeit toothless body Delhi Women’s Commission, using every power at her disposal to address the hydra-headed issues that women face on a day-to-day basis.
When Maliwal was appointed as chairperson of the Delhi Women’s Commission, she was barely 31 years old. However, her young age proved to be her greatest asset, as she infused youthful energy and hope into the role. During her two terms in DCW, she handled more than 1,70,000 complaints and galvanised the office like never before.
In her capacity as DCW chairperson, Maliwal sat on a 10-day fast in 2018, demanding death penalty for rape convicts. Following another brutal rape in the Capital, she went on another 13-day fast, demanding greater accountability from the system.
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