AAP leader Kumar Vishwas (file pic)
At the height of electioneering for assembly polls in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party posters, ubiquitously plastered on the capital's autorickshaws, slammed then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit of the Congress for failing to keep women safe.
The city was furious and protesting over the brutal rape gang-rape of a medical student on a moving bus in December 2012 and the AAP posters exhorted the people to vote in an
Arvind Kejriwal government to ensure that Delhi women were not raped anymore.
Safety for women was high on the list of promises of AAP, which also censured Mrs Dikshit for pointing out then that she was hampered in ensuring better policing of the city by the fact that the Delhi Police reports not to the state government but the Centre.
On Wednesday, as reports came in of a
51-year-old Danish woman being gang-raped in the heart of the city on Tuesday evening, senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, handpicked by Mr Kejriwal to challenge the Congress' Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha elections due by May, said, "Delhi Police does not report to the Delhi Chief Minister.''
And Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal would only say, "I don't want to talk about this right now."
Neither Mr Kejriwal nor his senior minister Manish Sisodia, the only other person authorised to speak on the issue, were available for any more comment. A press conference that either of them addresses every evening, was cancelled.
The irony was lost on very few.
Mrs Dikshit's son and Congress spokesman Sandeep Dikshit said, "The rape is not an issue for AAP as the woman is not a voter." (
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