NEW DELHI: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday accused the Delhi Police of being influenced by the BJP and working like "goons" after he met the Election Commission to lodge a complaint against the police for harassing the call centre employees hired by the party.
Heading the AAP delegation, including MP Sanjay Singh and the party's Lok Sabha candidates Raghav Chadha and Atishi Marlena, he met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora here and urged him to direct the Delhi Police to stop the harassment of the call centre employees.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Sisodia said the delegation has also given the details of the voters' names deleted from the voters' list and the EC has promised action after a probe.
"The police, influenced by the BJP, is working like goons. They inquire and harass the people working at the call centre (hired by the AAP). This should be stopped. We have demanded the suspension of three police officials who are working on the direction of the BJP," he said.
On the complaint of the BJP that the AAP was making "misleading" phone calls about the voters' list, the Election Commission last month had asked the Delhi Police to probe telephone calls to people claiming their names have been deleted from the electoral rolls. It also directed the police to take action against the people making such calls. An FIR was also filed in this regard.
Sisodia said that the party hired the call centre to make people aware that names had been deleted from the voters' list.
"The call centre was not making proxy calls. They were hired by the AAP. We have an agreement with them. Talk to AAP, talk to Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia, and other party leaders if you have an issue. But instead, they (police) are harassing the people of call centre," he said.
Accusing the BJP of deleting names from the electoral rolls in the city as part of their election strategy, the AAP said it hired a call centre to ask and inform the voters about the act.
Sanjay Singh also wrote to the EC saying that the BJP, through the police, is harassing the AAP leaders and the people of Delhi and there is a possibility that the elections will be influenced.
In the two page letter in Hindi, Singh said the Delhi Police, which comes under the Central government, is harassing the AAP leaders, the people appointed at the call centres hired by the AAP and also the general public.
He also said that if the EC feels, it can probe the call centres, but should immediately stop the "politically motivated police".
Atishi Marlena, the AAP's Lok Sabha candidate from East Delhi, said the BJP is "misusing police machinery" as the saffron party knows that it will lose all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the city.
Later in a tweet, Sisodia said the police has raided the call centre again, taking the count to three raids in four days.
"The police has raided our call centre. This is the third raid in the last four days. I met the EC in the morning and within one hour there is a raid, this shows that the EC wanted to give all our data to (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi."