As the entire Aam Aadmi Party takes assault accused Bibhav Kumar’s side against its own MP, DCW member Vandana Singh emerges as the lone AAP voice to support Swati Maliwal

On 17th May, Delhi Minister and AAP leader Atishi Marlena addressed a press conference to officially discredit Swati Maliwal’s allegations and disown the party’s Rajya Sabha MP. The development came days after Maliwal accused Bibhav Kumar, a close aide and former PS of Delhi CM and AAP Supremo Arvind Kejriwal of assaulting her inside the CM’s residence. Days later, she filed an FIR in this matter. 

After the 17th May press conference, the party, its official handles, and its leaders have openly claimed that Maliwal’s allegations were false and that it was a conspiracy to implicate Arvind Kejriwal at the behest of the BJP. They have publicly taken the side of the assault accused Bibhav Kumar in this case and released a few videos (the authenticity of these videos is still yet to be ascertained) to claim that Maliwal was lying. Incidentally, the assault accused Bibhav Kumar was also seen alongside senior AAP leaders including Arvind Kejriwal as they campaigned for the party and the I.N.D.I. Alliance. 

The AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal even led a march to BJP headquarters in Delhi today to protest against the arrest, offering to arrest them. However, the police stopped the march and removed the protesters.

Amidst this total support of the party for Bibhav Kumar, Vandana Singh, a member of the Delhi Women’s Commission and leader of AAP’s student wing Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) has completely taken a different stand. She has vehemently countered the party’s “lies” and extended support to Swati Maliwal. She has expressed strong discontent against AAP’s stance of backing an accused and calling its Rajya Sabha MP “a traitor and a BJP agent”.  

Since 17th May, when Atishi Marlena addressed the press conference on the Swati Maliwal assault case, Singh has been posting a series of tweets on X slamming AAP’s IT cell and party leaders for launching a smear campaign against Maliwal. 

(Her Dislay picture is one with Arvind Kejriwal. Incidentally, both of them have taken opposite sides in the Swati Maliwal assault incident.)

Strikingly, Vandana Singh in her pinned tweet praises Arvind Kejriwal as “The man, the myth, the legend”. Additionally, in her display picture, she is seen posing for the photograph alongside Arvind Kejriwal who is donning a T-shirt.

(Vandana Singh, who has opened a front against AAP and its supporters on the Swati Maliwal case, has her pinned tweet praising Arvind Kejriwal. However, after AAP openly sided with the assault accused, she has not posted anything in support of AAP or its policies)

The picture was seemingly taken after Kejriwal’s release from Tihar jail after the Supreme Court granted him conditional Interim bail in the Delhi Liquor Policy scam case. Further, she was the one who accompanied AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh when he visited Maliwal’s residence, to extend support to her. Notably, at that time Sanjay Singh had admitted that Maliwal was assaulted by Bibhav Kumar and had promised stringent action.

On Friday (17th May) when the party had indicated that it was against Swati Maliwal’s decision to file an FIR in the assault incident, Singh reshared an old video of Arvind Kejriwal in which he was lauding Swati Maliwal and described her as “Lady Singham of Delhi”. She later posted her picture with Swati Maliwal and extending solidarity with her, Singh wrote, “Behind you, always!”

In another tweet on 17th May, she launched a scathing attack on her party colleagues for acting as trolls and discrediting their own party members and leaders as BJP agents or traitors. She advised them to open school on how to troll and discredit one’s own party leaders who have years/decades of association with AAP and its founders since its inception. 

Responding to Atishi Marlena’s press conference against Swati Maliwal, the DCW member raised several questions and countered the arguments put forth by the party against Maliwal. She rubbished the argument that the fallout unfolded because Maliwal didn’t have an appointment to meet the Delhi CM, asserting that she always met Kejriwal without an appointment. She also inquired if it was a BJP conspiracy, and why did the victim not implicate Kejriwal in it as he is the main adversary of the saffron party.   

She wrote, “Even if we assume that #SwatiMaliwal came to meet without an appointment, will you get her beaten up? By the way, she has always met AK sir without an appointment. If all this was happening at the behest of BJP, then in the FIR regarding the incident at CM’s residence, no one would have taken the name of CM and not his PS! The video is after calling 112 (police), and is a partial video! Where is the complete video and CCTV footage?” 

In several of her posts, she has asserted that the video clippings posted by AAP in this matter are “edited” and out of context to suit their narrative and demanded that the entire CCTV footage should be made public. Swati Maliwal also has made similar claims.

Slamming her party leaders and supporters, Vandana wrote, “Calling everyone a BJP member and a traitor will not hide every lie! And the country’s politics will not change!”

The same day, she lashed out at the party’s IT cell and supporters for calling Maliwal “a traitor and a BJP agent”. 

She fumed, “What could be more unfortunate than the fact that a grassroots struggler, who worked day and night behind the scenes, from the RTI movement to the Anna movement, is being called a traitor and what not. When she got a job in Delhi Women’s Commission, she created her own identity by working day and night there. But perhaps many people were not happy with getting the Rajya Sabha seat and from that day onwards, the conspiracies started! Anyway, the fearless work for the country will continue.”

A day later, on the 18th of May morning, she slammed AAP’s allegation that Swati Maliwal hatched the conspiracy to implicate Arvind Kejriwal at the behest of the saffron party. Lashing out at the party’s theory that Maliwal was taking dictates from BJP and pointing out that Swati Maliwal had joined Arvind Kejriwal’s RTI venture Parivartan 20 years ago, she had written, “BJP came to know about this 20 years ago, that’s why they planted Swati Maliwal in the NGO ‘Parivartan’? Right?”

Regarding the unverified videos shared by the Aam Aadmi Party to discredit Maliwal’s allegations of assault and that “her clothes weren’t torn”, she advised the party to kill dissenters to nip the case otherwise it would have to brace for a protracted struggle.  

On the 18th of May, Vandana Singh wrote, “Posting limited video chunks after editing it according to your wishes and calling someone a BJP agent, the case will not be over. For that, you will have to get us killed or otherwise, everyone should brace themselves for a long struggle!” 

Furthermore, to counter AAP’s “videos” and posts that claimed that Maliwal was lying about the assault and her clothes being torn, she shared media reports about Maliwal’s medical report which confirmed injuries to her face, legs, and eyes. 

On Sunday (19th May), she posted a point-by-point counter of AAP’s claims in this case. She tweeted, “Those who are saying that this is happening at the behest of BJP or she is going to BJP, they will get the answer with time! Whoever has been hurt in life to date, the full extent of the injury and the pain, both are fully understood only after the next morning! And in anger or distress, a person tries to run away even after being shot in the leg.”

The post further stated, “The parts of the video showing the beating were deliberately edited! No one else from outside has access to the CCTVs of the premises. The case due to which there is talk of compromise with BJP is of 2016, and it already has a stay from the High Court. And when BJP has no role to play then why would any public leader (a person with public reputation) lie that he got beaten up and that too at his own leader’s house? Use your brain a little!” 

In another tweet on Sunday, she sarcastically took a dig at the Arvind Kejriwal-led protest march towards BJP Headquarters held to express solidarity with his arrested close aide Bibhav Kumar. 

She took a dig at the party because the protest march didn’t last long and police removed the protestors from the venue quickly, preventing them from reaching BJP headquarters. Arvind Kejriwal had announced on Saturday that he along with entire AAP leadership and workers will go to BJP headquarters in Delhi, asking the BJP to put them in jail. However, police imposed section 144 in the area and foiled the protest.

In another tweet, she listed out the entire sequence of events in the Swati Maliwal assault case and urged AAP supporters to “think” about what went wrong that their party all of a sudden disowned their Rajya Sabha MP. 

It is pertinent to note that the AAP student wing leader and DCW member, Vandana Singh has not posted anything in support of AAP and its policies after it openly sided with assault accused Bibhav Kumar. In all of her last posts, she has posted tweets only to counter her own party, AAP, over the Swati Maliwal assault case at a time when the entire rank and file of the party has sided with the assault accused, Bibhav Kumar.

Vandana Singh has emerged as the only major AAP leader to support Swati Maliwal, while all other AAP leaders, including CM Arvind Kejriwal and senior minister Atishi, a woman, are supporting Bibhav Kumar.


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