JD(U)'s Sanjay Kumar Jha accuses Arvind Kejriwal of 'hating' people of Bihar-UP, demands apology

New Delhi: Janta Dal (United) working President Sanjay Kumar Jha on Thursday accused Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Arvind Kejriwal of "hating" the people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Jha strongly criticised Kejriwal's recent remarks about "fake voters" from these states and demanded an immediate apology from Kejriwal for his comments.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Jha expressed his anger, asking, "Why do you hate people from Bihar and UP so much, @ArvindKejriwal ji? You should not forget that Delhi is not your property, it is the capital of the country and belongs to all the countrymen. The people of Bihar and UP have achieved a position not only in Delhi but across the world on the basis of their hard work and talent."
"The palace you have built for yourself is also built using the tax money of the people of Bihar and UP living in Delhi. Your repeated insult to the people of Bihar-UP is intolerable. You should apologize immediately," read the post further.
Notably, the dispute arose after an AAP delegation led by Arvind Kejriwal met the Election Commission to raise concerns about alleged voter irregularities in the New Delhi Legislative Assembly.
The party highlighted a significant surge in voter registrations and deletions on the seat while alleging a "voter fraud" taking place at a large scale.
Former Delhi CM Kejriwal said that a total of 5,500 votes were registered in 22 days. He also claimed that out of 89 people who had applied for deletion of 5500 names from the voter list, 18 denied submitting the request.
"The Chief Election Commissioner is out, but we met with the other two commissioners. One of the issues we raised was that in the New Delhi Legislative Assembly, between December 15 and January 7, a total of 5,500 votes were registered in 22 days. The total votes in this assembly are 1,00,000. This means that 5.5 per cent of the votes were registered in the last 22 days, which clearly indicates some irregularities. There are issues with these applications," Kejriwal told reporters after meeting the Election Commissioners, here on Thursday.
"When the lower officials investigated, the individuals whose names appeared on these applications denied having submitted any request to cut votes. 89 people had applied for 5,500 votes, and 18 of them came to the Election Commission and denied submitting any applications. This means there is a large-scale election fraud happening," he added.
Furthermore, the AAP Chief also alleged that from December 15 to January 8, 13,000 new voter applications were received.
On Wednesday, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi wrote another letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, raising the issue of adding and deleting the names of voters in the New Delhi Assembly constituency and seeking an immediate meeting on the issue.
CM Atishi previously wrote another letter to the CEC regarding the same issue on January 5.
The Delhi assembly polls will be held in a single phase on February 5 and the counting of votes will take place on February 8.
AAP won 62 out of the 70 seats in the 2020 assembly elections and BJP secured eight seats.