Kejriwal accuses BJP of insulting freedom fighters

Former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who on Friday appeared before the Privileges Committee of the Assembly over the Phansi Ghar row, has accused the BJP Government of “insulting freedom fighters” by trying to prove that the disputed structure was actually a ‘tiffin room’.

“In 2022, then-speaker Ram Niwas Goel discovered that in one corner of this building, there was a Phansi Ghar where freedom fighters were hanged. He called me, as I was the chief minister, and said that ‘we should open it for tourists’.

“I inaugurated it, but since the BJP came to power, they have been trying to prove that it was not a Phansi Ghar but a ‘tiffin room’. I believe there could be no greater insult to freedom fighters than this,” Kejriwal told reporters on the Assembly premises.

“The BJP only wants to do politics. Is this the only issue left in Delhi? People of Delhi are upset, they are remembering the AAP Government,” Kejriwal claimed. The Phansi Ghar (execution room) row is a dispute between the AAP and the BJP over a renovated section in the Delhi Assembly, which the AAP claims to be a British-era gallows chamber, while the BJP claims it was a tiffin room.

After the BJP came to power in Delhi last February, Speaker Vijender Gupta told the House that the British-era structure, which was renovated and inaugurated in 2022 by then chief minister Kejriwal as part of a Phansi Ghar, was actually a tiffin room.

Showing a 1912 map of the Assembly complex, Gupta said there were no documents or evidence indicating that the space was used for executions, and referred the matter to the Committee of Privileges for examination. Coming down heavily on the BJP Government in Delhi, Kejriwal claimed people are receiving electricity bills worth thousands of rupees, coupled with power cuts, while “there is chaos everywhere”.

“I would gladly share my experience (of running Government in Delhi). It does not matter to me which party is in power; I only want Delhi to function well,” Kejriwal said. As the committee proceedings were underway, several AAP workers staged a protest outside the Assembly complex, raising slogans alleging that the entire exercise was meant to defame Kejriwal.

Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly, Atishi, and former speaker Ram Niwas Goel accompanied Kejriwal inside the Assembly. “Delhi Police stopped Arvind Kejriwal’s personal security officer outside the Assembly. His personal staff were also stopped, while the security vehicle accompanying him was not allowed,” AAP sources claimed.

AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that over the past 10 years, several Assembly committees were formed, and whenever people were invited to appear before them, they usually came along with one or two assistants. The AAP leader added that he never heard or saw any Assembly committee summoning a former speaker or an ex-chief minister, calling the move “absurd”.