The BJP fielded its national president Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to counter the charges made by Kejriwal, who has been relentlessly accusing Modi of lying about his education. The two leaders launched a blistering attack on AAP leader and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accusing him of lowering the public discourse by spreading “lies” and substituting governance with “politics of adventurism”. They demanded an apology from him. Shah and Jaitley alleged that Kejriwal has tried to turn a “lie” into truth by running a campaign to mislead the people of the country.
Jaitley said the kind of allegations that have been levelled against Modi threatens “federal polity” in the country when a Union Territory indulges in “irresponsible behaviour” to attack the Prime Minister. They challenged the Delhi Chief Minister to verify his claims.
“Arvind Kejriwal has been spreading lies about the Prime Minister’s credentials. He has committed the sin of defaming the country. It is very unfortunate that we have to hold a press conference about the Prime Minister’s educational qualification. “When you do not have any proof, how can you spread allegations. He should apologise to the entire nation,” said Shah, adding he will also write a letter to Kejriwal to satisfy his queries. When asked about the authenticity of Modi’s BA degree, Shah told a reporter to check it with the Delhi University. Jaitley said it was ironical that such a charge has come from a political party several of whose MLAs are being prosecuted for having fake degrees.
“The politics of adventurism is being treated as a substitute for governance,” he said.
Jaitley said there cannot be a bigger example of an “Aam Aadmi” than Modi as despite being in public life, he would travel from Gujarat to Delhi in the 70s to take BA examination as an external student. “I knew this because I was a student union leader in Delhi University then as he would stay in ABVP office in 33, Bungalow Road here,” he added.
Taking a jibe at AAP, he said it should have rather praised Modi for his educational achievements as a common man for whom it is supposed to speak. “Without checking up any fact, AAP levelled such allegations. It is public discourse at its lowest level,” he said.
Asked whether a case of defamation would be filed against Kejriwal, Shah ruled it out. He also attacked Congress’ Manish Tewari and JD (U) leader K C Tyagi for supporting Kejriwal on the issue. “Congress should first clear the air on the AgustaWestland issue,” he said.
Asked to comment on the CIC order over the issue, Shah refused to react saying it was a legal issue whether the order was wrong or right. Refuting AAP’s allegations that the degrees released by BJP were “forged”, party’s National Secretary Shrikant Sharma blamed “clerical mistakes” for discrepancies in the names and pointed out that they were the same in the final marksheet and the certificate of BA course.
He also lashed out at Kejriwal saying AAP was an “infection” that was “poisoning” the nation’s polity and said he had once gone to jail for levelling “false” charges and will be behind bars again. “Modi’s names in the BA marks sheet and certificate of 1978 were same. As far as some differences in his names in other papers are concerned, these are nothing but clerical errors,” Sharma said.
Hitting out at AAP, he said the party had earlier claimed that the DU degree belonged to a Alwar-based person, whose name resembled that of the Prime Minister, but that person has already clarified that he was in the commerce stream.
AAP insists docs fake
Immediately after BJP National President Amit Shah and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released the degrees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to apologize for lying, Kejriwal reiterated that those documents were “fake”. Kejriwal who is also National Convenor of Aam Aadmi Party tweeted that the documents in Delhi University had been sealed and the BJP had presented “farzi (fake) documents” to the media.
He demanded to know why the “real records” related to Modi’s B.A. degree had been sealed. He urged the university to implement the order of the Central Information Commission (CIC) which urged them to put Modi’s B.A. degree on their website. The chief minister tweeted: “Docs in DU have been sealed. BJP presents Farzi docs in a PC and gets real records sealed? Why? Implement CIC order. Allow inspection,” demanded Kejriwal. AAP leader Ashutosh alleged ‘glaring discrepancies’ in the documents produced by BJP.
Later in the day, DU vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi said he has not issued any orders to seal documents.
“We have received an order from the Central Information Commission (CIC) and we will respond to it after checking our records. As far as the sealing of records is concerned I have not issued any such orders and if the university department dealing with RTIs has done the same in its own capacity, I am not updated about it,” Tyagi said.