Jitender Singh Tomar resigned as Delhi's Law Minister after he was arrested for allegedly faking his law degree. (Press Trust of India)
After Jitender Singh Tomar, who quit as Delhi Law Minister this week, two more Aam Aadmi Party lawmakers have been accused of faking degrees.
The BJP's Karan Singh Tanwar has deployed a Right to Information query to allege that Surender Singh, the AAP legislator from Delhi Cant, has faked a degree from Sikkim University.
In the RTI reply, the BJP man alleges, the assistant registrar of Sikkim University has said that no student by the name of Surender Singh registered for the Bachelor of Arts course at the university or its affiliated colleges according to academic records.
"He claimed on his Facebook profile that he is studying at Delhi university, in election handouts he has written he is an MA with Hindi and in his election affidavit, on oath, he has said he is a graduate of Sikkim University. He left the Army in 2011, how did he complete his BA in just one year by 2012?" said Mr Tanwar, who is a former BJP legislator.
The case filed by Mr Tanwar is in the High Court. AAP's Surender Singh has denied the allegations and, like Mr Tomar, claims he is the victim of a" political conspiracy". Mr Singh pointed out that he had defeated Mr Tanwar in the Delhi elections held in February, which AAP swept winning 67 out of 70 seats.
One of those 67 MLAs is Vishesh Ravi, who represents Karol Bagh and has been accused by a former party colleague, Rajesh Garg, of discrepancies in the election affidavits he filed in 2013 and 2015.
Mr Garg, who was recently thrown out of AAP, alleges that in 2013 Mr Ravi had said he got his Bachelor of Commerce from a UP university, but this year, said he is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts from IGNOU or the Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Mr Ravi has refused to comment till, he said, he verifies what his two affidavits say. Discrepancies, if any, are not intentional, he added.
In the wake of the Tomar controversy, the Aam AAdmi Party has questioned why action is not being taken against union minister Smriti Irani, whose election affidavits too have discrepancies on her educational qualifications.
But both the police and the election commission sources say that they would need a complaint to proceed against Ms Irani or any one else.
A case of cheating and forgery has been filed against Mr Tomar, who is now in the custody of the Delhi Police.