Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national joint secretary Gopal Italia was arrested by the Surat Crime Branch on Monday over his alleged defamatory remarks against state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, reports The Indian Express. He was subsequently granted bail by a Surat court.
Police had registered the case against Italia in September last year for allegedly using defamatory words against state BJP chief CR Paatil and Gujarat minister Harsh Sanghavi as well as calling BJP workers “goons” in a video message uploaded on social media platforms. This was after an alleged attack on Gujarat AAP leader Manoj Sorathiya in Surat.
An FIR was registered against the former Gujarat AAP chief at the Umra police station in Surat, based on a complaint by BJP worker Pratapbhai Chovadiya. The case is being probed by Surat Crime Branch.
Reacting to the police action, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal alleged that the BJP is working on the sole agenda of finishing the AAP.
“The BJP is so rattled by the spectacular performance of the Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat that it has now arrested our Gujarat leader Gopal Italia,” Kejriwal alleged in a tweet in Hindi.
“The BJP has only one aim now: how to finish the AAP. These people will put everyone in jail one by one,” he added.
After the party won five seats in Gujarat, thereafter gaining a national party status, the AAP appointed Italia as the party’s national joint secretary and made him in-charge of the party’s Maharashtra unit.
Earlier, before the polls, Italia was replaced by journalist-turned-politician Isudan Gadhvi, who was also the party’s chief ministerial candidate, as its Gujarat unit president.