Atishi, In All-Out Attack, Says Gautam Gambhir Will Be Disqualified Soon

Aam Aadmi Party's Atishi, pitted against former cricketer and BJP candidate Gautam Gambhir in the Lok Sabha elections from East Delhi, on Sunday launched an all-out attack against her opponent.

Countering Mr Gambhir's allegation that the AAP had "no vision", Ms Atishi listed three counter-points. "In 4.5 years, AAP government built 2 new schools of excellence, 2 talent schools, 2 university campus, 25 mohalla clinics in East Delhi and 32 are under construction. Hundreds of new jobs. Talk about your vision too?" she said in a tweet in Hindi.

Ms Atishi also asked Mr Gambhir to describe what Maheish Girri, who won from East Delhi in 2014 and who stepped aside for Mr Gambhir to contest from the area, had done for the constituency in the past five years.

"What did you do for East Delhi in five years for which the BJP gave you the ticket from here?" she asked Mr Gambhir.

"No voter in East Delhi will vote for you, because your nomination will get cancelled. So by voting for a disqualified candidate, no votes will be wasted," she said.

Lok Sabha Elections 2019: AAP's Atishi alleged Gautam Gambhir was a registered voter from both Delhi's Karol Bagh and Rajinder Nagar, both of which fall under the Central Delhi Lok Sabha constituency

Mr Gambhir ought to come clean on the allegations, Ms Atishi said in which she claimed the cricketer held two voter ID cards from two different neighbourhoods of the city.

"Under Section 17, read with Section 31, false declaration in the matter of electoral rolls is punishable with jail time of up to one year," she had said on social media earlier, using the hashtag #GambhirApradh.

Ms Atishi alleged Mr Gambhir was a registered voter from both Delhi's Karol Bagh and Rajinder Nagar, both of which fall under the Central Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.

Mr Gambhir on Sunday dismissed and labelled the allegations against him to be "negative politics".

"When you don't have a vision and have done nothing in the last 4.5 years, you make such allegations," he said.

Replying to Mr Gambhir, Ms Atishi told the former cricketer to "deny" the allegations and furnish evidence against them and asked why he was avoiding them.

"He knows the rules of cricket, but not much about politics," she said at a press conference. "That's why he keeps finding better ways of getting out," she added.

Ms Atishi had on Thursday, filed a criminal complaint against the former cricketer and also complained to the Election Commission.

A Delhi court is scheduled to hear the complaint filed by Ms Atishi on May 1.

Atishi has earlier worked as Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia's adviser and was involved in drafting AAP's manifesto in the 2015 Delhi election. She is an alumnus of Delhi's St Stephens and Oxford University.

Gautam Gambhir had been a vocal ambassador for the BJP before he joined the BJP. He has played 58 Test Cricket matches and 147 One-Day Internationals and was a member of India's cricket team which won the T20 World Cup in 2007 and the One-Day International World Cup in 2011.

East Delhi will be a three-cornered battle between Gautam Gambhir, Atishi and Congress's Arvinder Singh Lovely.

Delhi will vote in the national elections in the penultimate phase on May 12. Counting will begin on May 23.