AAP delegation meets EC, demands action against Delhi police for harassing call centre employees

An Aam Aadmi Party delegation, led by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Friday met the chief election commissioner to lodge a complaint against the Delhi police which, it claimed, was acting at the BJP's behest to harass call centre employees hired by the party.

A BJP team had held a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and alleged that the AAP was making "misleading" phone calls about the city's electoral rolls.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls scheduled to begin on April 11, the Election Commission had directed the police to take "necessary action" against the people making such calls. An FIR was also filed in this matter.

The AAP leaders asserted that they were responsible for hiring the call centre employees to make people aware that names had been deleted from voters' lists and the police should question the leaders instead of these workers.

The AAP alleged that BJP got more than 30 lakh voters' names were deleted in Delhi. When the Aam Aadmi Party started talking about this issue and hired a call centre to inform voters about it, the BJP got rattled and ordered the Delhi police to harass the call centre employees, it alleged.

To lodge a complaint against the Delhi police, the AAP delegation, including Sisodia, senior leader Sanjay Singh and Lok Sabha candidates Atishi and Raghav Chadha, met the chief election commissioner Friday.

Sisodia urged the EC to direct Delhi police to stop the harassment of the call centre employees.

"The Delhi police is working like goons. We urged the EC to stop the Delhi police from doing it. They (Delhi police) are pressuring and harassing the call centre employees. They are not making proxy calls, they have been hired by the Aam Aadmi Party, we have entered into an agreement with them to do it," he said.

"You talk to the AAP, talk to Arvind Kejriwal, talk to Manish Sisodia. We have demanded that the EC take action against police officials responsible for harassing the call centre employees at the behest of the BJP," he added.

Singh, a senior AAP leader, said if the Election Commission feels that a probe must be initiated against the AAP then they should go ahead with it but the ways used by Delhi police are "illegal and politically motivated".

In a letter to the Election Commission Friday, he called for strict action against the police officials involved in alleged harassment of the call centre employees.